Defected

Self-Portrait and poem We step out of the smoke warm with aftermath. The world snaps on like a floodlight. Red is everywhere In emergence Sirens tearing holes in the air, naming us before we speak. Their faces turn. Their eyes narrow. They flinch like we’re contagious, like survival is something that stains. Look how they look at me… at us. As if we chose the fire. As if the smoke didn’t choose us first. The city breaks apart through human eyes with warped lenses, by cheap judgments, vision corrupted by fear. They call it defect. They call it wrong. They call it too much. But my body keeps rendering itself overexposed, yes, edges burned into memory, still pulsing with intent. I am not what they see. I am what remains after the alarm fades, after the red loosens its grip. We exist anyways, inside a world that mistakes our emergence for a threat.

• Fujicolor Crystal Archive Professional Lustre Paper
• 210gsm
• Vibrant, fine-grain pebble texture
• Archival: 100+ years on display, 200+ years in storage
• Silver halide, RA-4 wet printing process
• Sizing: White borders do not change size of the print