Artist Statement – John Manno, Misbegotten Places

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Misbegotten Places is a series of photographs depicting imaginary architectural environments I construct entirely by hand, using miniature dioramas built from my own photographic prints. These spaces don’t exist in the world, but they feel as though they could — ambiguous in scale, mood, and purpose. They’re misremembered interiors, half-forgotten alleys, stage sets for something that just happened or is about to happen. By photographing these invented structures, I explore the emotional and psychological weight we assign to space — how places, even when entirely fictional, can trigger memory, longing, or unease.

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The process involves folding, tearing, and shaping photographs into physical forms that often echo real-world materials: walls become paper, tiles become ink. In photographing the resulting sets, I retranslate the tactile back into the visual, creating a double illusion — a photograph of a paper object made from a photograph of a place.

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This work is situated between disciplines: sculpture, photography, installation, and narrative fiction. It draws on traditions from artists like Thomas Demand and Laurie Simmons, while charting its own path through the constructed image. Misbegotten Places invites viewers to project themselves into these impossible spaces and to reflect on how memory and meaning can be built — and rebuilt — from fragments.

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