The Archive of Gesture (2020) is an ongoing series comprised of found images, still life photography, and digital interventions. The works use collage and sculpture to look at the role of hands in communication.
Unspoken forms of communication such as gesture play a large role in our everyday lives, gesture can be manipulative, and information delivered in this way can be miscommunicated and misleading. Politicians are extremely careful with their gesticulating as to not infer negative connotations; religion uses gestures to communicate to deities, cultural gestures used incorrectly in foreign countries may cause offense. Gestures can be misused and misinterpreted. But what happens in the absence of gesture?
Using Greek statues as a reference, the inspiration for this work is drawn from the absence of body language. In many instances, the arms or hands of the statues are missing, broken off, or amputated over time. The famous statue Venus de Milo is said to have held an apple in one of her missing hands.
The works included in The Archive of Gesture are made thinking about the balance between absence and presence, truth and lies, transparency and obstruction. Playfully comparing these contrasting ideas in the images themselves, The Archive of Gesture questions what role this plays in constructing meaning.
