Skeleton Woman

Within the project Skeleton Woman, Sasha Hitchcock is interested in the phenomenon of dissociation, intergenerational memory and childhood amnesia. Hitchcock explores the link between the body and the mind and the concept of character and body armouring – the body’s way of storing memory that shows up as repeat patterns, character defences, and muscle tension as a result of blocked emotions. She looks at creativity as an expression of our inner world and how armouring can lead to a restrictive creative process and a reduction in a natural expression of our unique Self. Hitchcock uses the camera as a tool to explore her subconscious and repressed infantile memories and analyses the subject matter, whether somatic or atmospheric, that she is continuously drawn back to throughout the project. She documents the journey out of dissociation, towards allowing the life force and creativity to flow freely. The restrictive creative process that relied heavily upon a set of conditions would now be able to be experienced as a spontaneous creative impulse, as Carl Jung describes, “a living thing implanted in the human psyche”.