Peeling Away the Shell

Peeling Away the Shell / 2002

Traditional C-41 Prints – 13 / 10” x 10”

Kim Borst

My intention with this body of work is to address the vulnerability of change taking place with my physical body, my emotions, my psyche, my intellect, and my spirituality. The necessity to address and visually speak about these changes was a result of the sublime anxiety I was feeling as I became more conscious of aging. Change was exciting and adventurous when I was younger but as I grow older it often times seems disruptive.

I knew I had to be the subject of the photographs. More importantly the environment in each photograph had to complement the idea of change within me and somehow convey beyond me the more universal idea of the inevitability of change. I decided I would need an aged architectural environment that would both convey the physical changes due to the ravages of time and also signify the need of humans to alter or change their environments. Change happens to us and we cause change.

Through the aid of my friend, at the time manager of the Norshor Theatre in Duluth Minnesota, I gained key access to this historical landmark and began making pictures of myself nude in most of the non-public accessible spaces/rooms in the building. Being nude in the photographs was important so as to convey the “purer, liberated but vulnerable human being.” The nude human body also reveals evidence of age and physical change. I discovered the non-public accessible spaces/rooms such as the original ceiling space (now lowered and enclosed) above the original stage theatre oozed with architecturally ornate remnants of past time and obvious change. After printing the photographs I started to realize groups of two and three established on the basis of those groupings being made in specific spaces/rooms. I also began to notice the existence of ladders, stairways, the handrail of a stairway, and doors and doorways; all suggesting change symbolically or metaphorically.

An important and constant concern in my work is the necessity to address and undress my, yours, our “Human Condition.” Early in my teenage years I came to the conclusion most of my peers and most adults did not often times listen to me when I spoke. As a result of this teen angst I became a loner and began enjoying my solitude but I still desperately wanted to be heard. As an undergraduate student I changed my degree emphasis four times before discovering photography as art provided me with a new voice people seemed to appreciate and were attentive to.