Surface Tension by Tabitha Soren

Issue 148

The images in Surface Tension all relate to the sense of touch, whether compassionate touch—the everyday, incidental gestures that we take for granted; a lack of touch—as seen in our society’s collective internet habits and pandemic Zoom culture; or harmful touch—including ways human touch has negatively impacted the Earth or how police violence has devastated communities in America.

These photographs were made by shooting, with a large format film camera, the grime and debris that accumulates on my iPad. The background images are appropriated from various devices through social media, images texted to me, and from my web history.

The vigorous and expressive gestures on the surface of the image reflect the conflict between reality and fiction and between our embodied lives and our online, mediated lives. The photographs put in sharp focus what we normally try to look past and ignore on our screens. The images show the dystopian outside world swirling with the fingerprints and greasy smears of our embodied selves. The human markings are seemingly at odds with the chilly detachment and objectivity of the information that flows towards us, unrelentingly.

Surface Tension, featuring an essay by Jia Tolentino, will be published by RVB Books in September 2021.

Tabitha Soren: Surface Tension will be on exhibit at the Mills College Art Museum from September 18 – December 12, 2021.

Tabitha Soren lives and works in the Bay Area.

www.tabithasoren.com | @tabithasoren