I Stroke My Hair

The photographs in the I Stroke My Hair project were created during a period of transition in my life, between the summer and autumn of 2015. My father’s death brought memories to the surface. Intuitively, I felt that I was photographing emotions from my childhood, or emotions rooted in childhood.

I experimented with images in which I used myself as the model. This gave me the freedom to put ideas into practice immediately and to direct the photographic situation in the way I wanted. The images are staged and partly digitally manipulated. They emerged through a kind of improvisational process, in which each image influenced the next, until the result gradually approached a subconscious mental image.

Memories, texts written about them, and interpretations have also influenced the photographs. Some of the images can therefore be seen as comments on the preceding ones. While working on the series, I realised that, on a subconscious level, I had been exploring what might be called the “good girl syndrome.” This broader theme is reflected in subjects addressed in the images, such as conflicting expectations of women’s roles, the pressure to perform and achieve, losing one’s way, objectification, losing oneself, concealing feelings of anger and shame, and the desire for change.

The photographs use metaphorical elements, references to myths and symbols, as well as humour, to create associations and provoke thought. Although the images are rooted in lived experience and in knowledge held by the body, they can also be read as expressing more universal ideas and conflicts related to womanhood. From the I Stroke My Hair project, I selected fourteen photographs for the exhibition. These works were also the subject of my thesis for my degree in Fine Arts at Lapland University of Applied Sciences.