J.O.Y.

Alice Connolly

Throughout my life I have had a genuine yearning to know the invisible God my parents talk so passionately about. It has been at the forefront of my mind always, yet become, over time, easier to push back, to ignore. Photography became my gateway to step outside a Christian belief, it made me question whether I was truly a ‘believer’ and ask what my disquiet around religion was actually about. It’s hard to photograph a concept, a feeling. I stepped away from myself and viewed my home as an artist, not as a daughter, not as a sibling. It gave me the strength to shoot intimate images portraying my family and our home. This project arises from a desire to heal myself from the years of religious domination and ‘Christian guilt’. But along the way I’ve gained the confidence and the admiration to want to raise consciousness around religion more generally— to present what it is really like, from the inside.

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