Notes on abjection
(ongoing)
What is normal and what is not, who is defining it and who is allowed to speak of it? What lies on the border between repulsion and attraction, the beauty and the ugly, the tension between “me” and the “other”; inner and outer. My photographic research on abject brings in also questions about identity and belonging, segregation, social and individual, disability and deviance.
The ambivalent nature of abjection means that we find it difficult to tear ourselves away from the experience. Being both compelling and terrifying, we experience conflicting feelings that simultaneously draw us in while also moving us farther away. Fascination pulls the viewer in, while we remain at arm’s length because of the dangers that the abject exerts. Rina Arya
