Bridges, Lily. Untitled (inside). 2021.

Being a child of an addict, in many ways, is a departure from a standard childhood

experience. I am interested in exploring my personal position as a child of an alcoholic, or as a

Girl, Departed, in relation to photography and the point-and-shoot camera. I will be pointing to

ideas presented by Audre Lorde, Judith Butler, The Slits, Hito Steyerl, Olga Ivashkevich, Latoya

Ruby Frazier, and Diane Arbus, as well as Nan Goldin’s, Latoya Ruby Frazier’s, Ava

Shieferstein’s, and my own photography. I aim to construct a new framework to consider the

visuality of the lasting effects of pervasive abuse, violence, and death in order to offer a

psychological and photographic toolkit for the negotiation of one’s abuse and expansion of one’s

identity to happen. Girl, Departed is referencing the specific gaze of a subject left in a

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