A Vision of One’s Self on the Bathroom Wall
In the midst of the pandemic, many of us are thrust into interiority. Social distancing indoors, we’re cocooned within a context of isolation, but it also opens up possibilities for self examination. During my process of discovering what to do and how to explore this isolated year, I began to photograph the hair I put up on the wall when I showered.
In the curvature of my hair, I’ve always seen forms. The way hair bends and interacts with water allows for a consistent yet evocative way of image-making when it’s held in conglomerate. In the forms of my hair on the bathroom wall, I am able to see parts of myself that I don’t have access to in my physicality. I see feminine images, swollen stomachs, nurturing bowed heads, loving embraces. From a loss, a part of me discarded on the wall, I am able to see aspects of myself, rediscover them and add them back to myself. What I don’t or can’t see in my body, I can see from my body. Through discarding my refuse hair, I acquire new validation about who I know I am.
Age of Loss is ultimately an exploration of how we can find ways to appreciate what loss gives us and how to take that with us. This act of intentionality pushes against the systems that incentivize ignoring the value of loss. In seeing these works, taking time to gaze at the grotesque, I am able to find new value in myself.
In the curvature of my hair, I’ve always seen forms. The way hair bends and interacts with water allows for a consistent yet evocative way of image-making when it’s held in conglomerate. In the forms of my hair on the bathroom wall, I am able to see parts of myself that I don’t have access to in my physicality. I see feminine images, swollen stomachs, nurturing bowed heads, loving embraces. From a loss, a part of me discarded on the wall, I am able to see aspects of myself, rediscover them and add them back to myself. What I don’t or can’t see in my body, I can see from my body. Through discarding my refuse hair, I acquire new validation about who I know I am.
Age of Loss is ultimately an exploration of how we can find ways to appreciate what loss gives us and how to take that with us. This act of intentionality pushes against the systems that incentivize ignoring the value of loss. In seeing these works, taking time to gaze at the grotesque, I am able to find new value in myself.
You
will always be present as yourself, even when forced into virtual contexts. Take the opportunity when no eyes
are on you to see yourself: through cast off hair, or stolen glances in
street-side windows, half empty plates, or flakes of skin. Take the opportunity to truly see yourself and we can face the absurdity of
virtual space.
Make peace, and move on to our New Terrain.
Make peace, and move on to our New Terrain.