The Kintsugi Project By Amy Woodward
– Honoring scars, the history behind them,
and the primal spirit of survival.-
The Kintsugi Project By Amy Woodward on Lens Magazine Issue #49 October 2018. Collection. Amy Woodward © All rights reserved.
Amy Woodward- The Kintsugi Project on Lens Magazine Issue #49 October 2018. Collection. Amy Woodward © All rights reserved.
“I’m Amy. I create photographs.
I feel. Sometimes I write. What drives me?
Storytelling. TRUTHtelling. Connection. Movement. Introspection. Grief. Joy. Anything that is bigger than me. When
my subjects are able to dig deep and connect with a place that is bigger than them, and facilitating that journey. Opening up the ribcage and exposing a place that we are so privileged to see, touch, and respect.
Originally from Canada, I now live in Washington State with my family. I have been photographing professionally for six years.”
About the Project:
“The art of kintsugi, or “Golden Joinery”, was born hundreds of years ago in Japan. Instead of tossing broken pieces of art or pottery in the trash, craftsmen would restore a broken piece with a lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something to disguise. Kintsugi recognizes the beauty of a piece’s history, marking its story with gold. It focuses not on replacement, but on awe, reverence, and restoration.
Often our life journey brings our bodies to a place of damage or trauma. Once damaged, time slowly knits together
broken flesh, bones, and spirits. A miracle of becoming whole again occurs, leaving behind the cracked evidence of what was once in pieces.
There is beauty in our scars. Scars are not “flaws”, but rather, an integral part of our own very personal journey of healing. Bodies whole, broken, then healed stronger than ever before – scars are the kintsugi of the body.”
The Kintsugi Project on Lens Magazine Issue #49 October 2018. Collection. Amy Woodward © All rights reserved.
The Kintsugi Project on Lens Magazine Issue #49 October 2018. Collection. Amy Woodward © All rights reserved.
“These stripes I earned through carrying two healthy, beautiful babies.
I remember the day I discovered my first mark; I was about seven months pregnant with my daughter. I have never been confident with my stomach, but seeing that single pink streak appear devastated me. I literally cried the entire day, thinking my chances at a fit, beautiful body were now over. That day it felt like my confidence would be shattered forever.”
– “Looking back, after giving birth to my amazing babies, I realize how silly it was to be so upset about something cosmetic.
I now look at those marks and feel proud of what my body was able to accomplish; I’m lucky that I had two uncomplicated, healthy pregnancies and I now have the two loves of my life.
I feel like part of a secret community of mothers who also sacrificed so much for their babies who are left with these battle scars to show for it.”
The Kintsugi Project on Lens Magazine Issue #49 October 2018. Collection. Amy Woodward © All rights reserved.
“First, I fell at work and tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder. Two surgeries and a year later, I was
just getting better when I felt a large lump in my left breast. Stage four breast cancer. Two weeks later, my breasts were removed.”
The Kintsugi Project on Lens Magazine Issue #49 October 2018. Collection. Amy Woodward © All rights reserved.
“My story starts on February 20th, 2003.
I was at a concert in a nightclub with a friend when someone lit pyrotechnics as a part of the show; the pyrotechnics quickly ignited the walls. We tried to get out of the club, but became trapped in a sea of people who were also trying to escape. My friend died; I survived the unimaginable fire. I was pulled out awake and alive, but only after the fire was fully extinguished several hours later. 100 people died and 230 people were injured that February night.
I had to survive for my little girl; she was all I could think about while I was trapped inside.
I spent the next few years of my life adjusting to my new normal.
I met Carrie in Vancouver, BC, at the World Burn Congress in 2007; she is a burn survivor, too. We became friends and kept in touch over the next few years; eventually we began dating each other in 2010.
Carrie and I had been dating a year when in 2011, I was asked by my team of doctors if I might be interested in a hand transplant. I talked it over with Carrie, my entire family, and my teenage daughter. After thoughtful deliberation, I decided to go through the long and tedious process of being medically evaluated to ensure that my body could handle the 15+ hour surgery and year-long rehab that a hand transplant would require.
It took nine months to be cleared by all the committees involved; on September 11, 2012, I was listed as a possible transplant recipient with the New England Organ Bank. My doctors were clear in the disclosure that it would likely take a while to get a close match, and that our chances of finding a perfect match were one in a million. We acknowledged that it might be a significant wait and went about our lives together.
I knew that if and when the hand transplant occurred, traveling would be out of the question for a while, so I decided to fly with my girlfriend Carrie to her hometown in Washington to spend a few days with her family. I would also be able to take Carrie back to the place where we had first met several years prior – Vancouver, BC.
My plan was to propose there. She said YES on October 4, 2012.”
The Kintsugi Project
THE BOOK
I am an empowerment photographer, and feel strongly that people should feel powerful in their own skin. By featuring scars in this year-long project, I hoped that my photographs, combined with the very raw and real stories of the subjects, could shine a light on the complicated path of hurt and healing.
That within a culture that expects us to apologize for our pain and suffering, we could create a safe space through honest storytelling. Sometimes people just need to be seen. To be heard. There is power in both. I am not the first person to photograph scars in this way. I hope I am not the last. Sharing the deepest, most human parts of ourselves as a community can only foster growth… I can’t think of anything better.
There are fifty-five incredible subjects in the book which is scheduled for release on November 10th, 2018.
There are no chapters – the subjects appear in the order in which they were photographed. Each story is written in their own words. Some stories came easily; some took longer to write down.
Some were unable to translate their emotions to paper, and I was honored to help organize their thoughts. Each subject was photographed using natural light in a 100-year-old building with distressed floors. I painted their scars gold as music played gently in the background. I encouraged each subject to simply be kind with themselves, and we created the photographs you see here.
Please join me in celebrating these people and their empowering scar stories. They are living proof of resilience, power, strength, joy, and the primal spirit of survival.
Honoring what is raw, what is real… this is the beauty of the human experience, shared.”
– Amy Woodward
To order a book:
If you wish to order a copy of this book, please go to
www.rawandrealbyamyk.com and click on The Kintsugi Project.
Read the full article on Lens Magazine Issue #49
