Jordan Porter Woodruff: PORTRAITS: Working Hands

Catacombs Gallery: In 2019, Jordan Porter-Woodruff joined The University of Chicago Medicine as the sole staff photographer. While photographing surgeries, she became fascinated with the power of the hand and its relationship to science, health, and technology. This interest has influenced her current project, Portraits: Working Hands, which is guided by the hand’s role in brain development, emotion, and creativity. Across the series, Porter-Woodruff highlights the hands of basketball players, sculptors, chefs, and others, to celebrate the fundamental tools that bring creativity to life. Not only does this series focus on the creativity that hands produce, but it also alludes to the beauty of intimacy and the power of touch.

In a society in which hands sign into law discriminatory policies, cause harm, and more, through this series Porter-Woodruff explores how hands also facilitate moments of gentleness and care. Inspired by Toni Morrison’s character Baby Suggs in Beloved, who while preaching to the formerly enslaved, encourages listeners to “Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either.” Collectively, the photographs from the Working Hands series are a reminder of the power of our hands and their ability to create proud moments, while also recalling the darkness that they can produce.  For more information, go to: www.epiphanychi.com

Photo Credit: Jordan Porter-Woodruff