Hyphens

        The project is a participation, performance-installation. All the photographs have been taken, printed, and collaged on site.  The project is about connections here and now—mine to you and yours to your body and memory.  

In Hyphens-The Senses, I have asked people if I may photograph one of their five senses.  Some people have gone beyond that and shared a memory of that particular sense. With photography, I document  the  fragments of the body, but not their memory or mine.  I have photographed body parts of individual people. I presented all the pictures as a whole. The composition is flexible and was continously changing.

      The sense—sight, smell, touch, taste, or hearing—may be the one that the participant felt was their dominant sense. Or it might be the one that they were most aware of when I asked them about their five senses.  Consequently, what you see in the photograph may reflect a positive or negative view of that particular sense at that moment. Specifically one person I photographed made fragrances. His sense of smell was very important, but another person thought of their nose because they had allergies.  These are just two of the many  photographs of noses, but is that information still there? It is now part of my memory. We connect to our world and other people through the information we receive through our senses.

          Hyphens is a new project. In the first part, Hyphens-Senses,  I photographed 80 people at Photo NY 2004.

At Photo San Francisco, in Brown Bag Contemporary's space,  the only changes will be I will be taking a different sense organ.  For instance, at the opening I will only be taking mouths. The next day ears, and so on.  I will also have a journal available.  I will ask people to write a few words about a memory.  For instance,  I remember eating ice cream with my grandfather.