Longing — do you express it or suppress it?
Longing is an immersive art exhibition exploring the emotional landscape and felt sense of personal longing through curated fine art imagery, sound, and prose.
Images that include biophilic seascapes, fleeting and figurative portraiture, and flora.
Both images and found objects guide the viewer on a sensory path through a visual exploration of light, texture, and movement. Fragments of unfinished stories emerge in unexpected corners alongside prose that is contemplative and open-ended.
There is a tangible intention to create a space that is not only a sharing of work but an invitation for viewers to become participants and step into the current of their own longings.
With a background in somatic movement and inquiry-based meditation, Jo finds herself endlessly curious and posing questions that compel her to take pictures as a means to articulate her thoughts and feelings on freedom and connection and the complexities of being human.
“Much of my life experience has shown me the value of cultivating a curiosity around process. There is often some sort of surrender required that is followed by an unraveling and simultaneous becoming. The process is nourished by engaging in conversation with people and with my camera and its subjects.
It is often longing that is the momentum—the energy that propels the initial gesture of reaching out to pick up my camera and take a photo. A longing to extend the moment. A longing to share beauty. A longing to understand, to connect more deeply, and so on.
My relationship with my longings is a grateful one. I welcome them. In the wonderful book Bittersweet by Susan Cain, she speaks of longing as ‘an authentic and elevated response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed and stubbornly beautiful world.’
There is, for me, a hopefulness, an aliveness in longing. It is never static—more an embodied pulse—and it is this often beautiful pulse that I have sought to capture in this series.”
