Trent Parke: The Christmas Tree Bucket

"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…." The Christmas Tree Bucket is a modern-day Christmas story with a dark edge. A wordless narrative, Parke's story is an ironic take on the typical Australian suburban Christmas. He photographs friends and family, and casts them in a twisted tale that merges fact and fiction. The viewer is left to make imaginative sense of images of barbeques, screaming children, a burning gingerbread house and even the photographer himself vomiting into the infamous Christmas Tree Bucket. Says Parke: "It was there--while staring into that bright red bucket, vomiting every hour on the hour for fifteen hours straight--that I started to think how strange families, suburbia, life, vomit and in particular, Christmas really was … Merry Christmas!"