THE DANGERS IN BEING SEEN

THE UNPROTECTED HAVE TO DIE YOUNG, from REBEL DARLING. Blake Sterling. 2025.

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Tonight is the exhibition.

The title is apt. Today I feel and fear the dangers in being seen.

The act of presenting myself on display to convey my honest, artist’s report—not for myself, but for this dangerous society.

Tonight I will consider “Blake” as I am, and “Blake” as the world sees and wants me to be. It is murderous when these fail one another. My god,

If I am lucky, if my legs keep me standing, and my voice holds out…

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The title is a personal one and something to our humanity. It was found in how I understand the three lives of each image:

taking. developing. exhibiting

and it is a reality in how we know or validate we exist. i need you to see me to exist. and i fear your seeing and mis-seeing of me. this danger is heightened for anyone with no image or a failing image in our society. to be seen is to be in society, to not be seen is freedom at the cost of one’s existence.

the photographer moves between tenderness and violence: it felt tender to be with my sitting subjects for each of these images. and upon exhibiting their images and presenting them, it now feels violent. for this to be of them, taken from and with them. for them to be on exhibition. and it is a dangerous thing when my work becomes about people and not about all of our humanity.

it is my hope to not be violent onto my subjects while exhibiting them for the world. this is an inevitable and a failing endeavor.

for me on January Fourth, and for my beloved subjects, we understand

The Dangers in Being Seen.