Body Studies (SP 23)

• stretch

  My body film is about my body as a whole as I'm stretching my muscles and joints. Growing up, I used to do gymnastics, and since quitting right before puberty, my body's changed significantly. I'm thankful for still having some flexibility and for caring for my body by stretching. Especially since I don't like exercising. Doing yoga in bed has been my safe private space since the pandemic. In recent years I've found comfort in my body just being a physical thing. As a girl, I've been conditioned to compare my body to others or want it to be different. Wanting my body to reflect my gender. But as an adult, I've realized that my physical self will always change, even after I die.

  I edited it to feel like a hallucination or astral body experience with the colors and echo effects. I created the audio using midi instruments from vintage toy sets. I wanted it to sound creeky, metallic, and otherworldly.

• buzz

  My video experiment focuses on two intimate processes. Recently: removing beads from my hair and preparing to shampoo. And from December 2020: shaving my head. In March 2020, I decided to cut my hair off shortly after returning to my Florida home because of the Covid lockdown. My hair was at a similar length that it is today, and with Zoom classes and little motivation to get out of bed and make myself presentable, I cut my hair to boy's length on a whim. I battled with what my hair meant to my gender identity and my mental health. It was a beautiful learning curve of accepting my physical body, what's temporary, and patience. I spent the year dyeing my hair half the hues on the color wheel and playing with hairstyles until I over-processed my hair to the point I needed to remove what was dead. That December I shaved my head to keep what could be nourished and have continued learning how to care for my hair in between all of life's challenges.

  I've been reflecting on my hair in 2020 and wanted to pair it with recent footage of me. I'm thankful for my desire to pick up a camera and record myself doing my hair because I can see my progress in not only length but accepting this part of my body. At its current length, I've found styles I enjoy but take a very long time to do like twists. They're solutions to the problems I felt in 2020, and while I don't want to shave my head again I do miss it. I created this video to hold space for these two mes. Past and present, long and short hair, tangled in a web of color and pixels.