Shaken by the Graze

Shaken by the Graze is an ongoing photographic project, developed as a conversation piece with myself about growing up as a hypersensitive child. Pivotal to the work is the collaboration with children aged between eight and twelve. Through body language, gestures and mannerism, the children physically manifest my own childhood experiences through their simulations.

Contact with plastic, using a spoon and touching surfaces with the palm of my hand were situations difficult to navigate as a child with heightened senses. These everyday stressful encounters with seemingly unnoteworthy situations brought me to introduce methods of coping, often described as being illogical or odd.

The re-staging of my early memories have broadened my interest in sociological impacts on one's internal psychology, and led me to be informed by the discipline of psychoanalysis. An introspective look into the past allows me to investigate cause and effect of my prevailing sensory issues.

Throughout the series, depictions of old and new experiences play off of one another. A ubiquitous blue rope in my work shows up in different formations, from appearing as a bundle of tangled mess to being as taut as a tightrope. Each configuration acting as signifiers of a chaotic overstimulated past to other moments of restraint.