Thrilled to be selected as a finalist again for The AOP Photography Awards with my series ‘Gestures’.
"This series of images comes from a continuing body of work I have collaborated with deaf artist, writer and director Louise Stern for over 15 years. Through this time I've slowly being learning ASL(American sign language), as Louise is American and grew up in an exclusively deaf community. Since leaving home she has fully immersed herself in the hearing world, communicating by either writing on scraps of paper or through an interpreter.
Communication has become a large part of what she explores with her art and writing.
This body of work is from rehearsal workshops for her feature film debut, in which the cast is predominantly deaf. The workshops were to help free the cast from specific forms of communication and to play with gestures and dance over sign language.
Louise invited me to participate photographically. She gave me the freedom to explore however I wished.
I didn't want to focus on 'deaf' characters signing, and instead focused on the separation between myself and the cast. I wanted to capture the power of this strong physical communication that was being created.
Colour is usually a strong part of my work, but black and white just seemed to focus on the gestures in these images clearer."