Hear Me Roar
Zo Damage 2026
HEAR ME ROAR (self-portrait)
Archival pigment print (triptych) on Ilford Smooth Cotton Rag (310gsm) from PMT (drum) scan of original 4×5” large format negative, 250 × 204 cm overall, installation view, 2026
Invisible Woman Syndrome is a psychological and social phenomenon characterised by increasing feelings of invisibility, lack of recognition, and perceived irrelevance, particularly among middle-aged women. At this life stage, societal conventions often position men as reaching their professional and personal peak, while women are marginalised by prevailing standards of youthfulness and perceived attractiveness. Inspired by the many women in my life, young and old, HEAR ME ROAR confronts these outdated perspectives by honouring the wisdom, experience, and beauty of middle-aged women. The project aims to cultivate open dialogue and encourage all women, including myself, to assert our presence, voices, and inherent worth. Conceptually, each panel of HEAR ME ROAR represents an individual woman, while the entire work embodies the collective voice of women. Executed as an archival pigment statement piece, the large scale deliberately confronts viewers, disrupting the passive gaze to foster direct engagement with the subject’s agency and worth as a site of presence and recognition.
HEAR ME ROAR represents a rare yet deliberate departure from my historically apolitical approach to art-making and my ongoing exploration of embodied, aesthetic experiences through hand-dependent analogue photographic practices. The project was made possible with the generous support of Prism Imaging and Ilford Australia.