Pas De Deux

These photographs explore themes of platonic intimacy, collective experiences, and the power of touch. The women I photograph are strangers, family, and friends whom I have met over the past twelve years.

Exposed bellies, backs of knees, two women wrestling, and a pile of hands gathering on my grandmother's arm. I have always been drawn to these secret moments, sacred sites within our internal and most intimate worlds. As I created these photographs over the course of twelve years, it soon became clear that I was composing a world where I desired to exist. My camera mediates between my lived experiences and those I so deeply desire, a place existing between the landscape and my lens. These photographs of women are not just images; they are an offering. They extend a sense of community, a thread of connection, even in the most solitary of moments.

This work explores themes of platonic intimacy, collective experiences, and the power of touch. I made these photographs through staged performances and observation. I am interested in what differentiates something we associate beauty with from something inherently violent. Can you spot a dance between two people from an act of self-defense? In both, bodies sway and roll across the earth, revealing a sense of vulnerability in the tension between two bodies. Domestic environments and neutral landscapes are the backdrop for these images. 

I first began photographing my mother and two younger sisters, which slowly expanded to include women I met through word of mouth, on the street, or through online ads. These women are surrogates for me, in a way. We are all eager to connect and be within proximity to one another. I admire the vulnerability it requires to be fully seen by myself and the camera. There is an unspoken sensuality that resonates between us.

I grew up taking walks in the woods with my dad, as he shared stories of his childhood in the 1970s with me. The woods have always been a place where I feel safe and inspired. Through different experiences, I was made to feel unsafe in my own body, and I was forced to carve out spaces where I feel secure. In these photographs, the women inhabit the forest, the rivers, and places where society remains untamed. Seeing these women occupy space satisfies a part of me that I previously wouldn't allow myself to acknowledge. I've always felt pressure to take up less space. Now, as I look at their bodies in the landscape, it gives me courage.

I set out to make these photographs without a direct path or a concrete way. The errors and missteps are all part of it; it was always about the process for me. This creative act of making these photographs, titled Pas de Deux, is an act of storytelling, giving myself and others a voice and an outlet for connection.