Sunday, 20 March 2016

Two More Inspiring Projects

"Seeing these features up close can feel like being let in on a secret.

Still, for all the openness and vulnerability of these bodies, the subjects of Melamed’s photographs are often turning away from her lens. One person looks above it, his green eyes hopeful and defiant, his cheeks scarred with acne and the barest hint of stubble. Another reticently turns his back and looks off to the side, as if he’s uninterested in returning the photographer’s gaze. One could read these photographs as a testament to the self-consciousness, the discomfort, or even the shame of trans-masculine people. Or one could see them as a compendium of refusals—the refusal to account for oneself, to “pass” as one thing or the other, to have one’s experience treated as a metaphor for individuality or transformation."

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/transgender-portraits-and-the-things-a-body-wont-tell


"Scars challenge the idea of beauty, that we should be flawless, especially in the age of photoshopping and the 'healing' tool to get rid of blemishes.

For her exhibition Flawed Landscapes, Marion photographed the scars of five women who underwent significant medical procedures.

Personal stories written by the women about what their scars mean to them accompany the photos.

Scars are connected to pain, trauma, humiliation, and shame: The idea of being 'not quite right'. There's the fear of not looking like the average unflawed person yet, in reality, everyone's got scars.

Marion said that people's enthusiasm to share their scar stories was about the desire of people to be heard and tell their story.

I think scars are beautiful because they're the story of us - they're the story of our lives."


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