Photography Project Descriptions
Cake/MRI: Cake/MRI pairs my mother’s photographs of her handmade cakes with images of her MRI brain scans. Colorful pictures documenting her joyous amateur cakes are juxtaposed with stark black-and-white medical scans documenting her neurological degeneration. The two bodies of images create a tension between celebration and mortality, decoration and anatomy, and surface and interior.
Techniques of the Liar: Techniques of the Liar examines the social architecture of horror film sets, where I work as a behind-the-scenes photographer and special effects makeup artist. This project focuses on the systems of control that puppeteer bodies toward rehearsed deaths, re-contextualizing both the bounds of the set and the fate prescribed by the script.
Oholei Torah: Oholei Torah documents ultra-Orthodox Hasidic women in the Chabad Lubavitch community of Crown Heights. Predominantly shot in the wedding ballroom of Education Institute Oholei Torah, this project examines the tensions between celebration and repression, materiality and transcendence, and religious rituals and gendered social codes.
ENJOY house: ENJOY house documents the made-for-Instagram selfie factories proliferating throughout New York City and Los Angeles between 2018 and the COVID-19 pandemic. This project examines how the physical architecture of artificial environments shape self-presentation, desire, and the production of autobiography.
Fabulations: Fabulations arose from ringing strangers’ doorbells in search of subjects for my undergraduate photography courses. I performed a particular kind of innocence and accessibility, entering the private spaces of mostly older men and creating the conditions for them to enact their own desires before the camera.
Video Project Descriptions
Mom’s Cakes: Mom’s Cakes is a short documentary about Beth Weiler’s decorative cakes. After over twenty years of storage in a dining room dresser, Beth revisits and reflects upon the last five cakes she made before losing the ability to use her arms. Combining recollection with bloopers, the film considers the disappointments, aspirations, and frustrations of art-making and the effects of time.
Yahudah vs. Owen: Yahudah vs. Owen is an ongoing, semi-slow-motion stunt fight structured as a palindrome. The action sequence loops continuously, creating a perpetual battle with no beginning or end. The soundtrack comes from a wind-up ballerina jewelry box that I rediscovered while preparing for the overnight shoot.
Mingo the Pink Flamingo: Mingo the Pink Flamingo is a children’s story written by my mother, Beth Weiler. After repeated rejections from publishers, I adapted her story into a short puppet show. The story follows Mingo, a flamingo struggling to accept his body. Mingo’s desire to change himself can be read alongside Beth’s own experience of living with quadriplegia and coming to terms with her changing body.
Iulia: Iulia pairs a pole dancing performance with the audio of a corporate marketing meeting. Styled like a late-night sex hotline advertisement, the video presents a contrast between sexual spectacle and the sterile language of marketing analytics. The project considers what one does during the workday and what one seeks after leaving it, placing the routines of corporate labor alongside the routines of sexualized labor.