"The Twins." Photographs and text by Jonathan Hobin.

Contemporary childrearing approaches try—without much success—to keep the harsh realities of the world at bay. Just like their parents, children bear witness to the twenty-four-hour news cycle and its accompanying commercial breaks. The onslaught of images, sound bites and other disjointed bits of information become cautionary tales for today’s child, as gory and terrifying as any unedited Brothers Grimm story.

“In the Playroom” is a metaphor for the impossibility of a protected space, safe from the reach of modern media. The images represent the quizzical disposition of youth and the media’s pervasiveness through tableau-vivant re-enactments of the very current events that adults might wish to keep out of their children’s worlds. Just as children play at being adults in preparation for taking on these roles later in life, so too do they explore what they hear and ...