Kenna Robinson

As a woman, my experience of being lensed is complicated and often uncomfortable. The photographic relationship has historically been that of male operator and female sitter. Unseen by the lens, the operator holds complete control over when and how the image of the sitter is produced. In its truest form, the sitter is separated from space and time, physicalized into a negative which is owned by the operator. In the contemporary, these moments capture last fractions of a second, appropriating the image of the subject in a lewd and instantaneous gesture. Like many women, I have experienced the sinister consequences of this take and have felt compelled to circumvent its practice when it comes to my self-imaging. 

As a contact printmaking process, cyanotype images are constructed entirely separate from the camera’s lens. Rather than sitting before the camera, the subject must physically touch the surface in order to be made visible. Where the camera’s shutter is quick, the cyanotype process occurs over time, developing an image as a response to light. Existing as an indexical document of what has been, cyanotypes are capable of expressing physicality and verifying the presence of its subjects while simultaneously denying access to descriptive details. Its images are some of the most truthful photographic representations and yet refuse to disclose most visual information.

With My Whole Body is a series of fabric cyanotypes, exposed from within the grasp of the artist that have been sculpted into three dimensional forms. Through an elongation of exposure, the images combine fragments of the body with motions of the surface to produce a collaborative and visceral abstraction. Liberating my being from the voyeuristic lens, I complicate a strict separation between maker and medium. This redefinition of the photographic moment invites the viewer to consider the nature of photography, informed by feminine experience, and question what it means to produce a photographic likeness.