Propulsion

PROPULSION evolves Elizabeth Waterman’s long-term study of dancers, pairing analog photographs of pole dancers and jellyfish in twelve diptychs. Presented at Photo London 2026, the project will be published by Skira in 2027.

PROPULSION marks an evolution in my long-term exploration of performance, sexuality, and the ways women are seen. In earlier projects, including MONEYGAME and CANDYLAND, I used portraiture and documentary observation to challenge reductive perceptions of dancers and other performers. Here, I move from social context toward a more associative and formally constructed visual language.

The project pairs analog photographs of pole dancers and jellyfish in twelve diptychs. Although they inhabit radically different environments, both subjects appear suspended between gravity and weightlessness, control and surrender. Bodies curve, extend, and drift. Limbs and tentacles trace corresponding gestures through water and air.

Beauty is the point of entry, not the conclusion. Color and movement draw the viewer in, while the pairings gradually complicate what is being seen. The dancer is not simply a performer, and the jellyfish is not simply an object of natural beauty. Each possesses agency, presence, and an instinct for adaptation.

By placing them in dialogue, PROPULSION moves the dancer beyond familiar narratives of spectacle and labor. The diptychs reveal a shared choreography of sensuality, vulnerability, movement, and survival. They are less about comparison than recognition: separate forms propelled by the same impulse to move and endure.

Twelve diptychs from PROPULSION were presented by Albumen Gallery at Photo London 2026. A monograph of the project will be published internationally by Skira in 2027.