Moments of light by Avianna Miller

Photography

Artist statement: I work within my home to make photographs and videos; this is a meeting place for spiritual connections to my Judaism and a shifting relationship to the body. I explore pockets of natural light that appear in the spaces of my home, investigating abstracted segments of the body, namely hands, as they interact with objects and surfaces.

Sunlight is a guiding force in my work. Sunrise and sunset operate as markers of Jewish practice, and sunlight is also considered a source of healing within the Jewish tradition. I explore interactions between moments of light and objects that invoke ritualistic ideas for me. These ideas embody my Jewish identity through the material form of traditional Judaica and implicitly Jewish objects.

My subject matter concerns intersections of my identity as I work to interpret them through studies of the material that give visual form to notions of spiritual clearing and renewal. Elements of the body, especially limbs, are important to my work as I investigate a spiritual relationship to the body as a chronically ill person. Hands in gesture, interacting with objects in the home, reinforce connections to person, place, and action.

I work collaboratively with my mother to imagine ritual spaces built upon generations of tradition. These staged spaces explore ritual as a grounded yet abstract practice that can be made material through reinterpretations of objects and acts. In what is revealed and what is hidden in my work, I consider that which can become visible within the ritual of making.

Moments of light by Avianna Miller

Photography

Artist statement: I work within my home to make photographs and videos; this is a meeting place for spiritual connections to my Judaism and a shifting relationship to the body. I explore pockets of natural light that appear in the spaces of my home, investigating abstracted segments of the body, namely hands, as they interact with objects and surfaces.

Sunlight is a guiding force in my work. Sunrise and sunset operate as markers of Jewish practice, and sunlight is also considered a source of healing within the Jewish tradition. I explore interactions between moments of light and objects that invoke ritualistic ideas for me. These ideas embody my Jewish identity through the material form of traditional Judaica and implicitly Jewish objects.

My subject matter concerns intersections of my identity as I work to interpret them through studies of the material that give visual form to notions of spiritual clearing and renewal. Elements of the body, especially limbs, are important to my work as I investigate a spiritual relationship to the body as a chronically ill person. Hands in gesture, interacting with objects in the home, reinforce connections to person, place, and action.

I work collaboratively with my mother to imagine ritual spaces built upon generations of tradition. These staged spaces explore ritual as a grounded yet abstract practice that can be made material through reinterpretations of objects and acts. In what is revealed and what is hidden in my work, I consider that which can become visible within the ritual of making.