365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears
"tapping into a river of grief and loneliness running under the surface of American life."
365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears (2011), is a series of photographs documenting a performance by Laurel Nakadate. Laurel Nakadate was born in Austin, Texas in 1975 and raised in Ames, Iowa. She photographed herself before, during and after crying each day from January 1 through to December 31, 2010. She described the images as 'performance was a disciplined, durational exercise that required her to "take part in sadness each day" during the normal course of her life'.
The images were captured in many different locations including in her New York apartment, her childhood bedroom
in Iowa, at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle, and on planes, trains and
in hotel rooms in places as varied as Talinn, Estonia, and Saratoga Springs,
New York.
Nakadate talked about how she 'originally came up with the idea when I
noticed that on social networking sites like facebook or Myspace, everyone
pretends to be happy all the time' I really like this idea of social media being a mask. Social media portrays
everyone as a happy person, no one would go onto a site and completely open up,
and talk about how bad a day they are having.
By showing herself, Nakadate can how her
personal struggle and emotions through the camera. We can relate to her, as we have all had bad days, while looking through the performance in images. I want to use this idea, and link it to my project with beauty and make up. I want to photograph myself applying make up to myself, and see how my body language changes, and if I do perform in some way.
