Cusp series, 2021

by Jordan Utting

These photographs interrogate the concept of a “cusp” – a point of transition between two different states – using the materiality of film. Due to the pandemic, for the last two years my mother, older sister, and I have been thrust back into the same household.

This series explores the specific relationship I have with my sister as we coexist in our mother’s one-bedroom wood cabin. She and I seem to always be on the cusp of each other, unable to distinguish where one begins and the other ends, resulting in a constant push and pull.

Using multiple and long exposures, Cusp considers the multilayered, complex nature of relationships and identities. Following the theme of illusion in photography, I attempt to push the medium of photography itself while simultaneously investigating the reality experienced by the participants of a close relationship. The images, by layering exposures, aim to capture not only the nature of interpersonal relationships but also the space of each exposure and their composition in relation to one another.

Playing on the way in which multiple realities can exist in one image, Cusp parallels the way in which my sister and I take up space in each other’s mental and physical lives in complicated ways.

Jordan U

About the Artist

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