Susan Swihart ‘s About
Face specifically follows the struggles and triumphs of being a twin but on
a broader spectrum revolves around dependency. The entire body of work displays
the war between independence and unity and identity amongst a pair. As a viewer
the pair does not necessarily mean a twin but can refer to a sibling,
significant other, friend, parents or even a thing. Entangled, Support and Shelter represent the moments of oneness
where the two people blur into each other and create a morphed individual. Scientifically,
these girls at one point were one zygote and eventually split into two embryos.
These images also highlight the variations of dependency that include comfort
and frustration. Always having someone present can be both warming and
maddening. Furthering the sense of wrestling with identity, the girls are
faceless, whether their backs are to the camera; an object in blocking their
face or their head is out of the frame. Joy,
Undone and Two represent the individuality that creeps out from them with
slightly different gestures such as one sitting entangled and one standing. Clean, Cold, Grow and Listen show how sometimes naturally they
are the same no matter how hard they battle against it. Their gestures are
almost mirrored in the way their hands are raised in Clean, how their heads are down in Cold, how their legs slant in Grow,
and how their hair lays against the ground in Listen. While we all cannot relate to being a twin, we could
possibly all relate to having an attachment to someone or something that is
both empowering and retraining.
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