Aleem Hurst

Issue 139

My body doesn’t feel like a part of me, but like a strange apartment that I did not choose and cannot leave. This tension manifests as an ever-present, buzzing discomfort that ranges from quiet and ignorable to deafening and all-consuming.  

When I feel especially trapped, I slip through the trapdoor of my practice and into my work, where I am able to craft my reality into something that is a pleasure to exist in. I revisit places and experiences where I could not, or cannot, exist fully as myself and—through the process of making photographs—construct an alternate narrative that I can inhabit without fear, inhibition, or shame.

Though the act of imagination serves as a refuge from a painful reality, it is also a valuable tool that I use to build a better one. My imagination informs my intuitive sense of what I want my body to look and feel like and allows me to picture the surrounding world as it could be; it restores my strength and my will to take action towards the ideals that I build upon within it.

Aleem Hurst (they/them) lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA.
To view more of Aleem's work, please visit www.instagram.com/_aleemhurst_ and www.aleemhurst.com

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