Untitled 5 (Hi I Love You)
by Brooks Eisenbise
$450
This piece was one in a series exploring (my) performative gender identity in adolescence, and how the trappings of the false self can leak into every part of our social and emotional life. Here, I combine photographs and film — old and new — with posts and “ask me anything”s I penned on Tumblr in high school. Behind the safety of a computer screen, where many kids my age felt we could be our truest selves, we shared secrets and spilled confessions on a public website for anyone to see. It was an offering, a testament to our need to be seen and heard; but it was also a mask in its own right, a way to distract ourselves from the ways the world made us feel small and unworthy.