Smoke and Soil

Growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s the ideals of masculinity were instilled in me by social institutions with expectations of stoicism, confidence, and ferocity. Anything else would be met with the harshest of criticism, ostracism, and violence. Smoke and Soil invites collaboration, wherein viewers are asked to engage with my past of violence and trauma surrounding my own manhood by digging through layers of soil. This act is used as a symbol simultaneously of burial and release, wherein you uncover hand-developed darkroom prints speaking to my coming of age as a man.