jessica, 2000.
silver gelatin print
20"x24"
from the series: mystery school
Since 1996 I have been working with people with developmental disabilities. Revisiting territory explored by (among others) Lewis Hine and Diane Arbus, Mystery School uses photographs, sounds, looped video clips, drawings, and writings to present a collaborative portrait of people who live and work with autism, epilepsy, down's syndrome, and other cognitive and perceptual disabilities. Depicting "problematic," "unbeautiful," and "easily objectifiable" populations, the images and artifacts present an atmosphere often beyond language and rationality, and ask audiences to come face to face with the limits of their own perceptions. As with earlier work involving children with cancer, I am most deeply interested in creating spaces where we might see and accept things not as horror, but as part of a greater wholeness -- a unity larger than theory, language, rationality, and individual.
Since 1996 I have been working with people with developmental disabilities. Revisiting territory explored by (among others) Lewis Hine and Diane Arbus, Mystery School uses photographs, sounds, looped video clips, drawings, and writings to present a collaborative portrait of people who live and work with autism, epilepsy, down's syndrome, and other cognitive and perceptual disabilities. Depicting "problematic," "unbeautiful," and "easily objectifiable" populations, the images and artifacts present an atmosphere often beyond language and rationality, and ask audiences to come face to face with the limits of their own perceptions. As with earlier work involving children with cancer, I am most deeply interested in creating spaces where we might see and accept things not as horror, but as part of a greater wholeness -- a unity larger than theory, language, rationality, and individual.
