A few years ago, I went to visit my family in Mississippi and Louisiana. While I’ve long explored American history in my work, I was interested in using this trip to learn more about the Civil War, and the deep-rooted Southern heritage that I felt was important to understanding this side of my family and our many perceived differences.

Several days were spent exploring Civil War battlefields with my aunt, uncle and cousins — hunting for ghosts of fallen soldiers in the tall Mississippi grass, hearing old family stories, drinking beer, and talking politics. I documented everything with my camera, took some sketches, and came home inspired by the history and people I had connected with, and enchanted by the haunting and beautiful battlefields I had visited.

“Shapeshifters” derives from my research into the untold stories of women who fought the Civil War disguised as men, something that occurred far more frequently than traditionally-told history would have us believe. I created cyanotypes using found photography of as many of these shape-shifting soldiers as I could find, and then printed these on fabric. The framed weavings you see are the final aesthetic result of that process.

For me, these works function as a way to tease out historical ambiguity and deepen the complexities I feel exist beneath the surface of a singular image, or a one-dimensional historical narrative.