Hagia Sophia
2023
This is the new "Hagia Sophia" series I am working on about the wisdom and power of elder women. Hagia Sophia means "holy wisdom" and it is from Hagia that we get the word hag to describe an older woman; its revered meaning having been turned on its head by a patriarchal culture. I have been affectionately thinking of this series as "Game of Crones" which is also fitting as the word Crone comes down to us from the word Crown 👑.
Using historical portraits of women ancestors long gone, layered with my original photography and collected ephemera, I created these portraits to honor ancestral grandmothers who were unlikely to have had a voice in their time to tell their truth. In this series I bow in respect and gratitude to these wise women, each sovereign unto themselves .
