“Held in a sympathetic curve” is a response to a personal need for an exploration of the unexpressed emotional hurt within the maternal line of my family, and myself. It makes visible the instinctive reaction to withdraw and to cover, but also to tend to and to mother, in response to these feelings. It is about a desire to be held, and to hold.
Through various physical interactions with the photograph as a material object, particularly through the use of hands, the project reflects a hesitant, tentative and protective approach to working with such personal material, and a resistance to exposing this vulnerability and sadness.
Working with the family archive and studio self-portraiture, the exchanges with the photographic material and process, though quite instinctive, are performed for the camera, and therefore othered; allowing for a degree of distance and enabling personal engagement without too much intensity.