haunting

Artist Statement

dissociation: a mental process of disconnecting from one's thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity

As a child, my family would often joke that I was off in my own world. It was a gentle jest spoken with love, however as I grew this sense of spaciness, of disconnect, grew in tandem. I often found myself feeling removed from reality, feeling distant - as though I was watching the world as opposed to being an active participant. During my first year of university a therapist brought the term dissociation to my attention: a coping mechanism formed in response to traumatic experience that causes one to disconnect from themselves and the world around them. This project was created as a means of reconciling with, and giving physical form to, an odd and every day aspect of my life.

In the images you see a ghost taking place of the self, exhibiting the sense of distance and removal an individual feels when experiencing a dissociative episode. To further this disconnect, each ghost is physically painted onto prints of the photographs, then scanned digitally, bringing them out of the photograph and into the material plane.