Exquisite
Printed with gold and black ink on the risograph, Exquisite is a small book that indexes and fragments the human figure. It borrows parts from eight different humans and sequences them from the top down (forehead, eyes, nose, breasts, hands, stomach, penis, and legs) to imply a single body. Each photographed individual was also asked to contribute a sentence, unaware of its context in the larger narrative. These phrases have been collaged together in the same order as the portraits to create a disjointed and eerily poetic paragraph.
Text reads:
I yearn for a silent soundscape, hearing nothing but the sound of my blood pumping through my veins. The land is important to me, but even more important is the idea that it becomes a “place” because someone has been there. I’m asking the monkey what it wants. Do you remember that day when we were seven years old and you started a mud fight and then I cried while sitting in a pile of fire ants? I masturbated for the first time when I was in the third grade. I am spiraling out of control, but my palms caught me. I can’t control the light that comes through. Every morning I would sit by my bed and watch him swim around in circles, in circles, in circles, in circles until one day he was gone.