“They feel better having a name for it, and knowing they’re not alone.” “I just thought my skin was really sensitive, and then I started photographing the drawings and people were like, ‘What is this?’” “They see the photos and say, ‘Hey, my skin does that, too.’ I didn’t know it was a thing with a name,” Russell said.
China, Colombia, Brazil, Turkey-I have a ton of people emailing me from Turkey.” For many who find her photography online, Russell says, a once alienating condition becomes a point of solidarity. “It’s fascinating the way people respond,” Russell told me. Many have epidermal reactions like Russell’s, furrowing into palpable welts at the provocation of even a light scratch of the neck or rub of the eye. People who reach out to Ariana Page Russell, an artist in Brooklyn, often see their own skin in hers. “They knew that their skin did something weird, but they didn’t know what it was.”
