Multi-media installation
Summer writes:
I wish not to be myself; not human, not made of skin, not static and dormant within one mind and body set.
My pieces are not imagery; they are equations of my personality. With varying media, I explore divergent areas of my psyche. My works are the manifestations of my history, thoughts and theories. Religiosity, abuse, abjection, identity, stages of life and ephemerality are sectors that preoccupy my mind. All my pieces are forms of portraiture; they emanate from personal experiences and then broaden with others’.
Self-Test Necklace III materialized from a Hirudotherapy session with ten leeches. Documenting both the session and the aftermath was vital because the notion of healing is as important as the act of endurance. The singularity of the experience invoked the understanding that any living organism requires sustenance and that I was happy to become the host. Wishing to renovate the parasitic nature of humanity by transferring my position to that of the host, I allowed the leeches to drink from me. As Hirudotherapy is used for medicinal purposes, the act of bloodletting is necessary for the rejuvenation of new blood. As I allowed this to transpire, my thought process was to document it as the beginning of a cathartic process, one that resulted in a five day photography record in which the bites and bruising healed. The main aspect to abjection, for me, is the catharsis that emerges from it.
