touch2

Before/After, photo, 1280x1280, 1280x1280

"Hair deeply affects people, can transfigure or repulse them. Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color ad texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as nature will in time turn our previously laid out cities into a weed-way."

A Natural History of the Senses, Touch chapter 2, "Hair," pg 84. 

Diane Ackerman 

Statement: This photo series depicts a before and after from a dramatic haircut. As noted in the chapter, hair is symbolic feature used for expression, religious symbolism, sexuality, all while reflecting the cycles of earth and time. These photos reflect a moment where I wanted to shift my femininity and sexuality to a neutral position, and I found shaving my head was the best way to accomplish this. 

touch

"As Essential as Sunlight," photo, 1280x1280

"Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight."

A Natural History of the Senses, Touch chapter 2, "First Touches," pg 80. 

Diane Ackerman 

Statement: This section references the influence touch as on the early stages of human life, and healing power human contact has on new born babies.  The focal point of my photograph is a clear, glass mason jar containing various weeds and wildflowers I picked on a walk from my home to the beach. The concept of picking living plants and bringing them inside the home, devoid of direct sunlight, is playing on the importance of human-to-human touch in the developing stages of life that this section references. The difference being my touch with the flowers I included in my vase is counter-productive for life: I touched them and took them away from a thriving environment, therefore, this is a photo of dying weeds due to touch.  If touch is 'as essential as sunlight,' here I choose touch over sunlight for these plants to bring an ideal of beauty into my home.