Image credit: Cecilia Borgenstam: Grey hoodie, September 2, 2018

Today I would like to celebrate the power that a single image can hold. There are certain photographs that just remain etched in our memories. I suppose we all have different reasons that a specific picture has the ability to hook us. For me, that sticking point occurs when an image holds this delicate balance of emotional poignance and aesthetic grace.

One such photograph comes from Cecilia Borgenstam’s project Here/​Not Here. This work examines the day to day objects left behind in Golden Gate Park by the transient / homeless population. Borgenstam’s quiet still lives of personal items interwoven with the landscape provide a way of helping us to see a community that is often overlooked.

The image that really sticks with me is a simple one; it is of a discarded grey hoodie left in a small clearing. Our vantage point as the viewer is from the ground, and we can feel the arc of foliage that encapsulates us. We look straight into an empty hoodie that seems to be half suspended in the air. Although we know that it is held aloft by hidden branches from the shrubbery behind it, the illusion of a gesture remains. It is as if the garment is animated with the spirit of its former inhabitant. A sense of life and absence are so oddly conveyed at the same time.

- Mia

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