Margaret Lansink: Body Maps

Take your own body

or the leached body

of your mother your father

your brother your sister.

Transparent body

of glass of leaves

of encoded messages

to the past and the future

unique thumbprint maze

ubiquitous death mask.

Take it trace it map it remember.

Ingrid De Kok, from Seasonal Fires, 2006

The skin does not lie: it’s a person’s age map; it’s the paper where his choices, failures, passions, fears are written on. The body defines ourselves, it stratifies and heals passing of time under veils, blankets and hidings. As the trunk to the trees.

As the paper to this book: it changes, it is crumpled or turns thin and transparent, defining - thanks to Ingrid De Kok’s words - the map of a weathered body.

©Photographs Margaret Lansink