The images in "Holding Together" are taken in Alabama and other parts of the US with abortion bans. I photograph women and people with uteruses holding botanicals historically used in reproductive care, including pennyroyal, Queen Anne’s lace, blue cohosh, rue, and juniper. In the post-Roe era, many in the US face a grim reality. Abortion was widely criminalized in 2022 and the federal Right to Contraception Act was defeated in 2024 by a coalition led by Alabama Senator Katie Britt. These realities have forced clinics to close, expanded contraception deserts, and turned personal health decisions into a political battleground. Even IVF has been politicized, impacted by a recent Alabama court ruling that classifies frozen embryos as children protected by law.

Working in collaboration with my subjects, we craft a counter-narrative to the regressive control enforced by political systems in the Deep South and beyond. We recall forms of folk medicine, including some that have toxic side effects, to honor a long and imperfect struggle for bodily autonomy amid persistent threats. The project seeks to highlight the essential role of community support in reproductive justice and consider ways art might offer the potential for collective action that restores and safeguards accessible, safe medical care for all. The plants we hold cannot adequately provide that care, and we refuse to accept a world where they become our only resource.

The project also acknowledges the often-unseen local, national, and international networks maintaining access to reproductive services in states with restrictive laws. In some images, partners, friends, and health providers hold or offer flowers in solidarity and shared support. Here, the project acknowledges ways advocacy has appreciably sustained access to reproductive care in states determined to restrict it.