"Holding Together" is a series of images taken in my home state of Alabama and other parts of the Deep South, where women and people with uteruses hold botanicals historically used in reproductive care. In the post-Roe era, Alabamians face a grim reality. Abortion was criminalized in 2022 and the federal Right to Contraception Act was defeated in 2024 by a coalition headed 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 state 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 Alabama’s political system. 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. Reproductive health is everyone’s responsibility, and some of my subjects who do not have uteruses hold or hand flowers in solidarity.