The artist has observed of this piece: '‘Childhood Imagined’ is part of a series on childhood, both remembered and imagined. This work is based on old photos of myself as a girl, dressed in proper coats and hats even for outings to the seaside! By transforming the fabrics into materials, which are unfamiliar and unsuitable for clothing, I am reworking the associations from the photographs and from my memories, and creating a fantasy version of my childhood.
''Childhood Remembered' is one of a series of works in which Ruth Schreiber evokes memories of childhood, both real and imagined. The transparency of the industrial material represents the nature of dreams and memories as elusive and unreliable; neither the dresses nor the sweet-crammed Mary-Jane shoes are suitable for wearing. This work was included in the exhibition 'Schmatte Couture', curated for Ben Uri by artist Sarah Lightman at the Rivington Galleries in London's East End in 2008.