Early portrait studios, equipped with skylights, depended on sunny skies to bathe sitters in light, a flood required to coax an image from recalcitrant emulsions. I imagine the day Gadisse was born: the sun warming her skin, its rays eventually finding mine. Our skies touching.
Hidden Mother tells the story of my child’s adoption as mapped though nineteenth-century hidden mother photographs. The term “hidden mother” refers to the widespread but little-known practice in 19th century portrait photography of concealing a mother’s body as she supported and calmed her child during the lengthy exposures demanded by early photographic technology. In the final portrait of the child, the mother—often covered from head-to-toe in a black drop cloth—appears as an uncanny figure. A practical strategy deployed by the photographer unintentionally yielded an evocative representation of the mother. Never meant to be seen, her presence nonetheless haunts these images. Hidden Mother enlists these strange and powerful images to present a poetic account of becoming a mother through adoption.