These images are an excerpt from my ongoing series “Talisman”. Working collaboratively, I arrange temporary scenes for the camera in the lived spaces of friends, family, and community. I locate gestures in objects and trace the imprints of community care. We create the meaning of objects through our performance of them; in my images I deconstruct these meanings and question the inherent meaning of objects. I investigate both object as a vessel of memory and object as symbol.
My process is informed by DIY spaces that reclaim mess and the discarded as valued, necessary, and useful resources. I layer found materials, plant life, and talismans—often directly onto the body—with my collaborators. I reference the ground as a site of death and rebirth, a symbol of the transformation of the body back to earth. Vanitas and memento mori resonate in my work, as I think of floral arrangements as memorials to time and place, a symbol of both life and death.
The photographs I create are made in collaboration with my sitters; the process is slow and intimate, using 120mm cameras and a 4x5 view camera. Photography is an imperfect container for my hopes, desires, and grief. I think of the photographs I make as talismans—charged with symbols and functioning as vessels that connect myself and the viewer to desire.
