“Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by the idea of being a detective or undercover agent,” says Laura Chen, “to solve mysteries in search of truth, reason and meaning.” As a child, Chen constantly speculated about people and scenarios, imagining herself to be involved in some kind of secret investigation. She would spy on her family at home, using monoculars and a periscope to observe what they were doing and noting their conversations. “One time,” she says, “in the early morning, while both my parents were still asleep, I took a sample of their fingerprints.”

Chen’s thirst for mystery and deception drives Being Framed, a multi-layered installation that explores themes of speculative documentary, parafiction, criminology, psychology, and the medium of photography itself. The work questions photography’s ambivalent status between fact and fiction within a narrative of imagined crimes, investigated by fictional protagonist DCI Dean Wilson, who dedicates his life to fighting what the official criminal justice system would consider “petty offences and misdemeanours”: uncalled-for behaviour, secret gatherings, heated arguments with next-door neighbours, stolen and broken possessions. In her installation, Chen invites the viewer to join the investigation, deciphering clues present in staged photographs, collages, ransom note-inspired letters, newspaper clippings and faked archival documents. The title plays with the homonymic nature of the phrase “being framed”, which can refer to both incrimination and taking a photograph. With a subtly tongue-in-cheek approach, the project draws parallels between photographic and criminological practice by experimenting with the two fields’ shared mechanisms connected with looking and describing: analysis, interpretation, the need for a “good eye” and the ability to construct compelling observations from seemingly meaningless details.