Purses
Purses, such an important usually private place for our stuff containing what we feel we need when we travel away from home. Have you ever read one of those books that change your life? The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brian did that for Ms. Day. It’s a war book. War is simply strange and impossible to speak of in all its experience. It has been said that people read war books “to learn about peace.” Less women serve in wars then men and they peacefully carry things all the time. So, Day followed her curiosity in discovering what women actually do carry in their purses.
Purses, a diptych of women with their purses (shot in B&W) paired with the content of their purses (in color) as documentation gives an up-close snap shot of their day to day important objects. The contents vary wildly from person to person but their similarities are just as startling. This series intersected with the mission of City 2000 on documenting Chicago’s citizens as they enter the new millennium. Later, the body of work took on an added significance when it inspired The State Department to invite Ms Day to lecture, teach and exhibit in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria, in 2003. Photograph Your Curiosity was intended as a cross-cultural exchange between the mutual cultural centers.