Witch

Throughout history, talented and body-confident women have been put down for their strength, being associated with perversion or sorcery. In this series, Norah aims to display the female form and experiment with the body through photography, exploring how an exhibit of body confidence bordering on voyeurism relates to a dark, discriminatory past created by patriarchal expectations of purity. She had not built the assertiveness to explore nude photography until viewing Francesca Woodman’s work, inspiring her to combine her curiosity of abandoned buildings with the human form, and merging the often degrading view of the female body with the physical degradation of neglected homes (both being physical representations of vessels). 

Historically, a home is where a woman is placed; inside the home, there lives a deep element of privacy and suppression which the woman must carry. A home is a place of comfort and individuality, while simultaneously fostering isolation. To take an intensely individualized space such as a home and simply condemn it juxtaposes the idea of the home being a woman’s sanctuary and duty to maintain. 

Norah chose to use analogue photography for the visual timelessness 35mm black and white film produces. The images appear as historical documentations due to this medium, though we know they are works of the present. This juxtaposition highlights the consistent gaze of objectification of the female body, be that past or present. Norah chose this subject for her project because she has always been interested in the human form and how a vessel visually appears interacting in the world. She took this interest and strived to create a statement denouncing historical and present societal expectations of women.