Nature vs Nurture - A Photo Series
Evolutionary geneticist and photographer Eleanor Rose Thomas investigates the contrasting relationship between nature and nurture, from child soldiers to traveling communities.
Eleanor, 23, is an English population geneticist and model fascinated by photography as much as from evolutionary genomics. By looking at different social settings she highlights how environments can mould kids into the stereotypical adults that we tend to place in specific human categories. This theory - which in genetics is called ‘nurture’ - acts like a paintbrush on the ‘blank canvas’ that is the natural genetic makeup of all human beings.
Eleanor wants to prove how the same child could potentially grow into different stereotyped characters according to his human and environmental interactions.
Taking artistic inspiration from photographer Diane Arbus as much as theoretical influence from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, she picked three globally-contrasting social scenarios including the jungle of child soldiers, the traveling community, and the wild plains tamed by cowboys and farmed by generations of families.
In the series - whose subject is Eleanor’s 7-year-old brother - childhood toys and the idyllic Welsh countryside where the photographer lives acquire a whole different meaning and aura, showing how social constraints can alter a kid’s life.
All photos by Eleanor Rose Thomas for Synaesthetic Magazine