Julia Cybularz

Photographer
    
Breaking the Girl
Location: Philadelphia and Boston
Nationality: USA
Biography: Julia Cybularz is an artist working in Philadelphia.  In 2000, she graduated with honors from Drexel University and went on to earn her MFA from The School of Visual Arts in 2007. I  have had the opportunity to exhibit my photographic... MORE
Private Story
Breaking the Girl
Copyright Julia Cybularz 2024
Updated Apr 2016
Location Philadelphia
Topics Adolescence, Beauty, Disability, Documentary, Emotion, Friends + Family, Hope, Illness, Personal, Photography, Portraiture, Yearning, Youth

Breaking the Girl follows Hannah, a thirteen-year-old girl, who has a severe curvature of her spine. She underwent a surgery that fused her spine to two titanium rods, which now assist her in standing upright. Since the age of nine, Hannah has been repeatedly and painfully fitted with, and worn numerous braces. This series visually unravels the journey of a young girl about to embark on the physical changes that coincide with puberty, meanwhile facing the confines of a corseted brace worn twenty-three hours a day to restrict her body from expanding. 

Breaking the Girl investigates the emotional and physical connections between the body and mind when the body fails.  The images explore the physical manifestations of anxiety, hope and the pervasive sentiment that occurs when a body inhabits a space that is not quite one's own. The artist seeks to examine the alienation and disconnect that occurs when Hannah is affected by physical and psychological constrictions. The photographs have evolved from an ongoing collaborative effort. 

Hannah is the artist's niece, who also has this particular spinal disease.


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