These youth have grown up on screens, looking in on an adult society where we ignore and cover up our problems — instead, passing them on to the younger generation. They are overwhelmed with sensationalized media, distractions of consumerism, and fears inspired by climate change and political folly. My photography provides extreme focus, time, and dignity to process grief and step into adulthood.
“These youth have grown up on screens, looking in on an adult society where we ignore and cover up our problems, instead passing them on to the younger generation. They are overwhelmed by sensationalized media, distractions of consumerism, and fears inspired by climate change and political folly.”
Suicide is the primary killer of teen youth in the US,
and this exhibition Dear World Goodbye’s large scale black & white photographs, short films, performance art, wheatpaste installations and cameras for the socially awkward address this pandemic.
Evolving their own rituals over the course of several years and locations,circling back to her son’s room as the stage where her collaboratours were given freedom to create an improvised theater of loss. Dear World Goodbye is a series of photographic portraits made in collabortion with teens grieving the suicide of their friend/brother and Heather Lynn’s son Trempealeau Hagios Morninglight. This is a subset of her work with youth. Teaching photography and Media Literacy in the public schools, after school workshops, and traditional portraiture. Her photography provides extreme focus, time, and dignity to process grief, midwifing youth into adulthood.
Documenting my community’s reality while fabricating part of it through a ritual, our photographs expose and resolve the problems of Taos Youth. As the children grew older, darker experiences unfolded, and the ritual became the most elegant way to describe that which is deeply disquieting.
By respecting young adults, while addressing topics that our culture has failed to prepare them for, this project created a space of shared learning, allowing for personal growth, and by extension social change.
surreal, often grotesque imagery, slow and hyper-controlled movements, and exploration of primal human conditions, using white body paint and minimal costumes to reveal raw emotion, inner psyche, and societal struggles, creating a haunting, hypnotic, and transformative experience for the observer performances rituals contrived and real illustrating the grief felt after losing a friend Trempealeau Hagios Morninglight to suicide on the Taos Gorge Bridge
I created this ritual to deal with integrating the experience of my own trauma as the experience itself was coming to a close. It gave me a way to handle all the intense feelings: It’s an inescapable fact that this happened to me; I did not in any way consent to this happening to me; the experience changed me and the person I am now depends on that experience having happened; I want to be who I am, but I’m also feeling the sheer pain of the trauma. The purpose of the ritual is to acknowledge the pain, accept that it happened, and move towards letting it go while still embracing the person one has become through the experience.
“These youth have grown up on screens, looking in on an adult society where we ignore and cover up our problems, instead passing them on to the younger generation. They are overwhelmed by sensationalized media, distractions of consumerism, and fears inspired by climate change and political folly.”
Suicide is the primary killer of teen youth in the US,
and this exhibition Dear World Goodbye’s large scale black & white photographs, short films, performance art, wheatpaste installations and cameras for the socially awkward address this pandemic.
Evolving their own rituals over the course of several years and locations,circling back to her son’s room as the stage where her collaboratours were given freedom to create an improvised theater of loss. Dear World Goodbye is a series of photographic portraits made in collabortion with teens grieving the suicide of their friend/brother and Heather Lynn’s son Trempealeau Hagios Morninglight. This is a subset of her work with youth. Teaching photography and Media Literacy in the public schools, after school workshops, and traditional portraiture. Her photography provides extreme focus, time, and dignity to process grief, midwifing youth into adulthood.
Documenting my community’s reality while fabricating part of it through a ritual, our photographs expose and resolve the problems of Taos Youth. As the children grew older, darker experiences unfolded, and the ritual became the most elegant way to describe that which is deeply disquieting.
By respecting young adults, while addressing topics that our culture has failed to prepare them for, this project created a space of shared learning, allowing for personal growth, and by extension social change.
“These youth have grown up on screens, looking in on an adult society where we ignore and cover up our problems, instead passing them on to the younger generation. They are overwhelmed by sensationalized media, distractions of consumerism, and fears inspired by climate change and political folly.”
Suicide is the primary killer of teen youth in the US,
and this exhibition Dear World Goodbye’s large scale black & white photographs, short films, performance art, wheatpaste installations and cameras for the socially awkward address this pandemic.
Evolving their own rituals over the course of several years and locations,circling back to her son’s room as the stage where her collaboratours were given freedom to create an improvised theater of loss. Dear World Goodbye is a series of photographic portraits made in collabortion with teens grieving the suicide of their friend/brother and Heather Lynn’s son Trempealeau Hagios Morninglight. This is a subset of her work with youth. Teaching photography and Media Literacy in the public schools, after school workshops, and traditional portraiture. Her photography provides extreme focus, time, and dignity to process grief, midwifing youth into adulthood.
Documenting my community’s reality while fabricating part of it through a ritual, our photographs expose and resolve the problems of Taos Youth. As the children grew older, darker experiences unfolded, and the ritual became the most elegant way to describe that which is deeply disquieting.
By respecting young adults, while addressing topics that our culture has failed to prepare them for, this project created a space of shared learning, allowing for personal growth, and by extension social change.
“These youth have grown up on screens, looking in on an adult society where we ignore and cover up our problems, instead passing them on to the younger generation. They are overwhelmed by sensationalized media, distractions of consumerism, and fears inspired by climate change and political folly.”
Suicide is the primary killer of teen youth in the US,
and this exhibition Dear World Goodbye’s large scale black & white photographs, short films, performance art, wheatpaste installations and cameras for the socially awkward address this pandemic.
Evolving their own rituals over the course of several years and locations,circling back to her son’s room as the stage where her collaboratours were given freedom to create an improvised theater of loss. Dear World Goodbye is a series of photographic portraits made in collabortion with teens grieving the suicide of their friend/brother and Heather Lynn’s son Trempealeau Hagios Morninglight. This is a subset of her work with youth. Teaching photography and Media Literacy in the public schools, after school workshops, and traditional portraiture. Her photography provides extreme focus, time, and dignity to process grief, midwifing youth into adulthood.
Documenting my community’s reality while fabricating part of it through a ritual, our photographs expose and resolve the problems of Taos Youth. As the children grew older, darker experiences unfolded, and the ritual became the most elegant way to describe that which is deeply disquieting.
By respecting young adults, while addressing topics that our culture has failed to prepare them for, this project created a space of shared learning, allowing for personal growth, and by extension social change.
Taos New Mexico, Heather Lynn Sparrow
Photography as a ritual
transforms the act of image-making from a simple task into a meaningful, mindful practice, creating structure, fostering presence, and connecting us to deeper emotions or spirituality by focusing on repetition, intention, and transformation, turning everyday moments into sacred acts of seeing, healing, or documenting life's unfolding story. It involves purposeful steps—like setting up a shot, preparing a space, or repeating an action—that create sacred time and cultivate inner awareness, moving beyond mere documentation to express gratitude, process emotions, or find beauty in the mundane.
“These youth have grown up on screens, looking in on an adult society where we ignore and cover up our problems, instead passing them on to the younger generation. They are overwhelmed by sensationalized media, distractions of consumerism, and fears inspired by climate change and political folly.”
Suicide is the primary killer of teen youth in the US,
and this exhibition Dear World Goodbye’s large scale black & white photographs, short films, performance art, wheatpaste installations and cameras for the socially awkward address this pandemic.
Evolving their own rituals over the course of several years and locations,circling back to her son’s room as the stage where her collaboratours were given freedom to create an improvised theater of loss. Dear World Goodbye is a series of photographic portraits made in collabortion with teens grieving the suicide of their friend/brother and Heather Lynn’s son Trempealeau Hagios Morninglight. This is a subset of her work with youth. Teaching photography and Media Literacy in the public schools, after school workshops, and traditional portraiture. Her photography provides extreme focus, time, and dignity to process grief, midwifing youth into adulthood.
Documenting my community’s reality while fabricating part of it through a ritual, our photographs expose and resolve the problems of Taos Youth. As the children grew older, darker experiences unfolded, and the ritual became the most elegant way to describe that which is deeply disquieting.
By respecting young adults, while addressing topics that our culture has failed to prepare them for, this project created a space of shared learning, allowing for personal growth, and by extension social change.
Pueblo Sacred Clowns: In Hopi and other Pueblo traditions, the Koshare (or Koshari) are powerful spiritual figures who use humor, satire, and exaggerated behavior during ceremonies to teach moral values and reinforce community harmony. They are easily recognized by their black-and-white horizontal stripes and corn husk "horns"