News & Events

Interviewed by Girl Security Founder & CEO Lauren Buitta and Creative Director El Nicklin

To follow and support Kayleigh’s work, visit: https://kayleighmacdonald.art

L: Kayleigh, I want to start by expressing how appreciative all of us are for what you created. As I have explained to so many about your work, I never really have the opportunity to do much outside of work and parenting, but I knew I had to make the time to see what you created when your exhibit was shown locally, and I am so grateful I did.

Q. Can you please share more about how the What We Carry exhibit came about? 

I’m so grateful you attended the opening, it was a very special night for me. What We Carry really is a personal project, something I started for myself after college when I was still living in Richmond, Virginia. I had been photographing for it for about a year before I showed it to anyone, when I was sharing some work with Bill Houser, curator of the James Library and Center for the Arts. We actually had been talking about showing a completely different body of work in his gallery, but when he saw some test prints for What We Carry he was incredibly excited, and we decided that with the current political climate, a showing of that work would be especially poignant. 

L: One of the aspects of your work – both this portfolio and your other work – that is most palpable is the sense of humanity you capture through your images and through the people photographed.

Q. Can you share more about how you sourced people to be photographed and what that process has taught you?

I’ve been so fortunate to have met and worked with an amazing group of people for this project.

I began by photographing friends, and from there I started approaching strangers, who would often connect me to their friends. I also put out calls for subjects in different facebook groups to try and reach a wider audience. 

None of these portraits would have been able to happen without the generosity and trust of those involved. I am continually in awe of their vulnerability, to let me as a stranger with a camera in. Their eager response to this project has taught me that we are ready to have this conversation, ready for this unveiling of what we keep in purses, backpacks, pockets. 

E: Many of these photographs feature the subject’s direct eye contact. Others exclude the subject’s face altogether, with the face outside of the frame or turned away. These variations of contact with the camera convey a sense of diverse stories, but the eye contact throughout weaves the collection together. It also seems that the subjects had agency in how they were photographed.

Q. How did these variations in the subjects’ gazes come about? What do their gazes signify?

Its always been very important for me to connect with my subjects before we make a portrait. And what that looks like is different for everyone. When I’m photographing, I’m working very slowly. When I’m working with new people for the first time, the first few shots serve as a warm up, we’re both still getting comfortable with each other. But there’s a moment that happens that determines when I press the shutter. It’s almost an exhaling, it’s an understanding. Its when both of our guards are lowered, for a fraction of a second, and the picture is made. . In some portraits, we made the choice to exclude the gaze entirely, such as with Michelle and Toby. In that image, Michelle serves as a figurehead for all parents, wanting to protect their children.

L: From my experience, being the subject of one’s own work can be uncomfortable. I was taught not to talk about myself. Yet, in starting Girl Security and realizing how prevalent violence against women and gender minority populations just among the national security community is, I developed the capacity to share my own story. You are a subject in this exhibit.

Q. Can you talk about your relationship with your work and how you balance who you are with what you create?

For me there is hardly any distinction. It can be quite difficult to sever those two parts because it all comes from the same place–turning off one would be turning off the other. Fortunately, this allows for genuine connection with my subjects, and work that speaks to and of my values. On the other hand, this also means that I’m never not working. Even when I’m not making portraits, I’m always thinking about the next one. Which, for a project like this, can be quite emotionally exhausting. Something I have to remind myself is that taking time to care for my mental health is integral to the work. I could not continue to make successful portraits if I didn’t sometimes take a break from shooting. 

E: The images often take place in spaces that might feel universal and familiar: on couches, in front of flaking walls, in a cemetery. Some feel more grounded in a particular space, like your self portrait in front of the “Spanish Church of God.”

Q. How were the locations determined, in relation to the people being photographed and the objects they carry?

I’m so excited to talk about this one! I put a lot of thought into location, and really enjoy scouting. If I’m out and come across a location that speaks to me, I’ll take a photo on my phone so I have the coordinates saved. They go into a big folder that I look through when I connect with a subject. When it comes to determining where I want specific people, I take into account a lot of factors. Locations have cultural and societal connotations that I use to embed the portrait with layers of meaning and direct attention to certain concepts. 

For example, there was a floodwall I had been interested in using, one that I’d pass walking to my old apartment. It had some graffitied text, and one day I noticed this watchful eye had appeared, and I knew it was perfect. In Kendra, Knife, it brings us back to this idea of vigilance, of watching, and of being watched. 

Sometimes it’s about contrast. There’s often a collision of soft and hard, a puncturing element. Its a pearl bracelet, the glint of the sun reflected in a knife. Other times there’s an uneasiness that comes from the benign. Michelle and Toby, Keys was made in their backyard, in front of Toby’s plastic playhouse that sort of serves as this allegory of the domestic space, and of childhood innocence. In that portrait, it’s the everyday reality that affects. 

Some locations work to draw attention towards the weapon, and others make the weapon a secondary piece–You’ll be looking at a portrait like Sarah’s, which reads as a classical portrait. Her hair is beautifully backlit. A breeze flows her skirt in almost Marilyn Monroe fashion, and only later do your eyes notice she’s holding a taser.  

E: The choice of location and legible language in the background of the self portrait made it stand out among the images, even before I realized it was you. The words “may his favor be upon you” adjacent to a stern gaze can be related any number of ways, depending on the context the viewer is coming from. 

Q. What was your intention in keeping the message behind you legible and framing it so close to your face in the image?

My self-portrait in this series was actually one of the last pictures I made. It had been ruminating since the beginning, how I was going to approach my portrait, and I’d been shooting this for a year and a half before I even attempted one. I knew it would have to punch me in the gut. So I was waiting for that kick. I was driving home one day when I passed a church and their messaging on the board, and I knew it was what I was waiting for. I made a plan to go back the following morning, just after the sun had come up, because I find that quality of light to be really special.

There’s this dry humor I find in the message because I feel it so perfectly encapsulates the reality we as women and gender minorities find ourselves in. MAY HIS FAVOR BE UPON YOU, to me, reads, “good luck.” We’re dropped down into this place which provides us with little to no protections from the violence enacted on us. Sometimes just existing feels like a crapshoot.

E: The images feel still – of course all photographs are “stills,” but something about the relaxedness of the subjects and the not quite natural lighting makes the moment feel particularly slowed down and heavy. This is in contrast with my preconceptions about some of the objects being held: pepper spray or a taser are used in moments that might be fast-paced and heightened.

Q. The concept of “What We Carry” suggests a sort of longstanding, even lifelong, weight. How were you thinking about these concepts of time and heaviness as you worked through this project?

It is a lifelong weight of a project, because it is a lifelong weight that each of us bears. And it is heavy. I’ve needed to take breaks every now and again, so I can keep making it.

If you’re a man who has never before considered the physical things we carry to feel safe, through this work I’m inviting you to get to know what the women in your life own. 

Have you seen your fiance’s taser, the one she keeps in her purse for when she walks home from the night shift? Has your sister ever shown you the pepper spray your father gifted her before she left for college? I have. 

Let’s look at them. Let’s talk about why carrying a weapon for self-protection is the norm for most women and gender minorities. That should not be normal. That should horrify you, and move you to question, to action.