Through the Former, 2024

Questionnaire, Portraits, and Journals

“To my former,

To be is to be content with change as well as judgement. As attention is drawn to you people will look and think, what is unfortunate about this thought is there is nearly no thought involved at all but rather a quick judgement. If only we employed this same process of quick thinking to ourselves. Unfiltered thought in a fleeting moment to be onto the next. Instead we tend to break down every bit of out being until we become unrecognizable in the mirror. More often than not I feel that way. What a strange sensation, you spend all day everyday with yourself yet sometimes we do mot recognize the person we see in the mirror. Interesting to think about other people through this lens, or how other people see us. I have been wrestling a lot with the idea of perception. It feels like an argument to explain myself to others. I wish they saw what I did but sometimes I wish the latter. I wish I saw what they did. It makes me think if we even have the authority to perceive ourselves or if there is simply too much bias. In an identity crisis I wonder if who I am is simply who other people see me to be. Through these images I was humbled, learning I know less about myself than I thought. In wrestling with these images I hope to see the person in the mirror in them as well as become content with the identity given to me by my creator. To be made is to be loved. As I grow I hope to not just know this but to understand it.

- Erin Geis”