“If you go there and stand in the place
where it was, it will happen again;
it will be there for you waiting.”

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Over the last eight years, I have been photographing empty dresses in natural settings. My constructions are part performance, part textile culture, part installation, and part photography.

My work has its roots in the conceptually-intense Land Art movement born in the late 1960’s where the artist’s photographs serve as referential evidence of a journey in nature. The dresses placed in the natural landscape serve not only as mementos of a voyage but also are the completion of personal, private rituals. Employing the historically feminine tradition of handicraft, I construct the dresses, engaging in the repetitive task of ironing, cutting, and sewing; and then, I methodically place the dresses in circles, lines, and curves in the landscape.

For me the dresses represent a spiritual group energy, which may be experienced by the viewer as positive or negative. In some images, the dresses appear to be dancing, where one can imagine female forms embodying the fabric. In others, the dresses seem vacant of their adorners, collectively serving as memories of gatherings past. There is a suggestion of feminine rituals, but it is intentionally ambiguous.

                                                                                                                                 JoAnna Johnson