Hybrid #1

My self-portraits explore my feeling that my body is too much; taking up too much space, too big to be attractive. For years I suffered from an eating disorder, obsessed with losing weight. Now in my photographs, I am reclaiming my body by taking up space in the frame. I felt locked in the cage that was my body. In my photographs the cage is represented by the edges of the frame and I am breaking out of it. I show my body stretching to the corners of the photograph, not letting myself crumple and submit to the passive female form.

#45/200 - Johanna Stickland

Berlin, 2016

Baby back, tender back, take it back. Soft back. Hard back, broken back back where we started back. Black back.

Bent and stretched - 2016