This photocollage series is part of an ongoing investigation into the body as self. Two of the three photographs were in gallery shows themed on the topics of women & gender, Art as Advocacy: Promoting Equity and Social Justice for Women (Illinois) and enGENDERing Change (Colorado).

Project statement-

This project addresses certain existential questions about the female
body, ranging from using the “selfie” format to photographing dementia.
Simone de Beauvoir speaks of “the strange ambiguity of existence made
body,” so this exploration hopes to address that ambiguity by exploring
the relationship between the viewer and the viewed, between the face and
the camera lens, the audience and the photograph. Each person who was
photographed was also struggling with an invisible disability. Issues of
the body and the self are compounded when that body is seen as a
betrayal, through the lens of body dysphoria, or as antagonistic to the
spirit. What is hidden v. what is shown is a theme that runs throughout
the work. What does it mean to be who you were before you were born?
What does it mean to have a female body? A disabled body? A body with a
familial lineage, within a societal context? We hope to address these
questions while remaining open-ended.