© Sahara Borja

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  1. From 2011 to the present I've been working on a collection of images that attempts to see myself as one entity, not this disparate vessel composed of "me" and "my body." I am using the camera in an honest attempt to see myself, because I have not been able to, clearly, for most of my adolescence through to adulthood. I don't know why, and I am trying to figure it out, in part because I have always been able to see others so much better than I can myself. Supposedly the camera doesn't lie - but the photographic process, one replete with omissions and selections of every kind, sure can. I have tried to see every part of myself, from toe to tip of curl and everything in between. I am prodding myself, contorting myself, decorating myself, stripping myself, compartmentalizing myself, etc., it seems, for an answer. There may not be one. This could be it - 'na mas, just me in some room with a set of Home Depot lights. For now, I choose the undecorated images. And in the end, ain't nothin' to decorate. And in the end-end, it's just you in a small room, anyway. A body is a body, is a body - - - and I wished for a heavenly one for some time growing up. Later, I couldn't help but fall in love with those who came equipped with the complete opposite design from what I was used to glaring at in the mirror, those beauties who came and went whose shapes  - for obvious reasons - spoke to me: that long, heavy hair tumbling down to the small of the back like a resplendent black waterfall, the walk like a tiger prowls, those endless legs with prehistoric measurements, angles, and inches, that beautiful and pronounced brow that I worked to see both rise and fall, that suprising skin (like a nectarine), or who was colored like olive oil, with black hair, and red beard... ass like the Renaissance, mouth like a blackberry upon puncture - - - ). In sum, everything is already beautiful all the time, everywhere. I have no 'hope' for what I want to see. I do not want to place judgement on my flesh nor do I want it to be 'about' flesh nor can I ignore it - this flesh. The title, Acabou Chorare, was taken from a Brazilian record by Novos Baianos that came out in the early 70s. It translates roughly to 'No More Crying.' And in fact, I think there really is nothing to cry about, and I am fucking elated about that.