Almost Touching : Yael Malka
SS
Can you tell us about your series Almost Touching?
YM
Almost Touching inquires about how we see and know others, and how we reveal ourselves to strangers, lovers, and friends. In the series, slick black polyethylene becomes a torso and a cosmetic face mask melds with a face, while the body loses its humanness: hands are severed, faces are missing, and the texture of skin is submerged in colour and shadow. To me, these images mirror the logic of getting to know others. So often, we say the opposite of what we mean and truth emerges from the margins.
Though Almost Touching is a body of work that strives for intimacy, it offers only clues and intimations: disembodied limbs, unmet gazes, and mute objects that are trying to speak. But you don’t need to meet a person’s eyes to know something about them—anonymity does not render a body inexpressive, and objects are seldom mute when seen in context. Even what’s concealed can be telling: with faces missing, a collection of gesturing hands can evoke threat, pleasure, strangeness, and familiarity. The project gives shape to a mysterious and potent intuition about our relationships to others: vulnerability rarely comes in the form of a declaration—rather, it lurks around the edges of false confession. Intimacy emerges from the interplay of what is shown and what is concealed.
Though Almost Touching is a body of work that strives for intimacy, it offers only clues and intimations: disembodied limbs, unmet gazes, and mute objects that are trying to speak. But you don’t need to meet a person’s eyes to know something about them—anonymity does not render a body inexpressive, and objects are seldom mute when seen in context. Even what’s concealed can be telling: with faces missing, a collection of gesturing hands can evoke threat, pleasure, strangeness, and familiarity. The project gives shape to a mysterious and potent intuition about our relationships to others: vulnerability rarely comes in the form of a declaration—rather, it lurks around the edges of false confession. Intimacy emerges from the interplay of what is shown and what is concealed.
SS
What does intimacy mean for you and how did your project come about?
YM
Making this work was something I did in order to further examine the mind and body connection. Often I feel a disconnect and becoming intimate with someone and getting to know one another reinforces a sense of self so I felt compelled to make photographs about that. I wanted to talk about what truly getting to know someone means, and if identity is who we see ourselves as, who people see us as, neither or both. People are often performing as soon as they wake up, get dressed and walk out the door. I wanted to make pictures about that in-between space of self-assurance and performance of self. It’s an abstract concept so I found myself trying to better understand it through images.
SS
Describe the process of making Almost Touching. Was it organic? Did you collaborate with your subjects and ask them what they wanted to portray or was this a joint experience?
YM
I started Almost Touching differently than any other project I’d done previously. I normally come up with a concept and follow through with images that fit within that idea. For this project, I decided to work backwards in a way—I didn’t have a distinct and clear path for this project but instead was coming up with individual images that were visually striking and encapsulated ideas I’d been interested in for a while. As for my subjects, I usually had a clear idea of what I wanted and chose these subjects specifically because I knew they’d be able to make my ideas happen. There were times that the movements were improvised and playful but it was mostly me giving them a general direction and then seeing where that would take us.
SS
Did you have specific goals in the final image-making?
YM
Normally I do, so it was really hard without a clear goal in mind when starting this project. I realised I needed to trust myself, the process and the work to get to a cohesive place. Three months in felt doable but when I got around the six-month mark of working on these pictures, it was a little scary and honestly frustrating to not have some sort of thesis for what I was doing. Although I knew I really liked the pictures I was making and what they said individually about relationships, erasure, pleasure and pain, sensuality and sexuality. As I started to look at the photos together I realised these were the themes I was thinking about and those were the common thread throughout the photographs. So my end goal was to create a body of work but getting there was a long and arduous process which at certain points I wasn’t exactly sure what I was trying to say.
SS
Is this project ongoing?
YM
I finished this project at the end of 2018. It was a two year process and culminated in a solo show at New York’s Rubber Factory Gallery. Although I’m still exploring similar themes of the body, gestures, relationships, representation, materiality and language with newer projects that use other mediums aside from photography such a sculpture, installation and sound.
Almost Touching : Yael Malka
SS
Can you tell us about your series Almost Touching?
YM
Almost Touching inquires about how we see and know others, and how we reveal ourselves to strangers, lovers, and friends. In the series, slick black polyethylene becomes a torso and a cosmetic face mask melds with a face, while the body loses its humanness: hands are severed, faces are missing, and the texture of skin is submerged in colour and shadow. To me, these images mirror the logic of getting to know others. So often, we say the opposite of what we mean and truth emerges from the margins.
Though Almost Touching is a body of work that strives for intimacy, it offers only clues and intimations: disembodied limbs, unmet gazes, and mute objects that are trying to speak. But you don’t need to meet a person’s eyes to know something about them—anonymity does not render a body inexpressive, and objects are seldom mute when seen in context. Even what’s concealed can be telling: with faces missing, a collection of gesturing hands can evoke threat, pleasure, strangeness, and familiarity. The project gives shape to a mysterious and potent intuition about our relationships to others: vulnerability rarely comes in the form of a declaration—rather, it lurks around the edges of false confession. Intimacy emerges from the interplay of what is shown and what is concealed.
Though Almost Touching is a body of work that strives for intimacy, it offers only clues and intimations: disembodied limbs, unmet gazes, and mute objects that are trying to speak. But you don’t need to meet a person’s eyes to know something about them—anonymity does not render a body inexpressive, and objects are seldom mute when seen in context. Even what’s concealed can be telling: with faces missing, a collection of gesturing hands can evoke threat, pleasure, strangeness, and familiarity. The project gives shape to a mysterious and potent intuition about our relationships to others: vulnerability rarely comes in the form of a declaration—rather, it lurks around the edges of false confession. Intimacy emerges from the interplay of what is shown and what is concealed.
SS
What does intimacy mean for you and how did your project come about?
YM
Making this work was something I did in order to further examine the mind and body connection. Often I feel a disconnect and becoming intimate with someone and getting to know one another reinforces a sense of self so I felt compelled to make photographs about that. I wanted to talk about what truly getting to know someone means, and if identity is who we see ourselves as, who people see us as, neither or both. People are often performing as soon as they wake up, get dressed and walk out the door. I wanted to make pictures about that in-between space of self-assurance and performance of self. It’s an abstract concept so I found myself trying to better understand it through images.
SS
Describe the process of making Almost Touching. Was it organic? Did you collaborate with your subjects and ask them what they wanted to portray or was this a joint experience?
YM
I started Almost Touching differently than any other project I’d done previously. I normally come up with a concept and follow through with images that fit within that idea. For this project, I decided to work backwards in a way—I didn’t have a distinct and clear path for this project but instead was coming up with individual images that were visually striking and encapsulated ideas I’d been interested in for a while. As for my subjects, I usually had a clear idea of what I wanted and chose these subjects specifically because I knew they’d be able to make my ideas happen. There were times that the movements were improvised and playful but it was mostly me giving them a general direction and then seeing where that would take us.
SS
Did you have specific goals in the final image-making?
YM
Normally I do, so it was really hard without a clear goal in mind when starting this project. I realised I needed to trust myself, the process and the work to get to a cohesive place. Three months in felt doable but when I got around the six-month mark of working on these pictures, it was a little scary and honestly frustrating to not have some sort of thesis for what I was doing. Although I knew I really liked the pictures I was making and what they said individually about relationships, erasure, pleasure and pain, sensuality and sexuality. As I started to look at the photos together I realised these were the themes I was thinking about and those were the common thread throughout the photographs. So my end goal was to create a body of work but getting there was a long and arduous process which at certain points I wasn’t exactly sure what I was trying to say.
SS
Is this project ongoing?
YM
I finished this project at the end of 2018. It was a two year process and culminated in a solo show at New York’s Rubber Factory Gallery. Although I’m still exploring similar themes of the body, gestures, relationships, representation, materiality and language with newer projects that use other mediums aside from photography such a sculpture, installation and sound.