…but words will never hurt me

2021

…But Words Will Never Hurt Me takes its title from the familiar childhood saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” The project responds to similar sayings and idioms that minimise emotional harm, drawing on Harley’s own experiences of words that are expected to be ignored but can become particularly powerful when they expose vulnerabilities or come from people we trust.

Made entirely within the home, the photographs use domestic space as both a practical consequence of the Covid lockdowns and a setting associated with intimacy, familiarity and safety. Alongside the images are handwritten notes in which most of the text is obscured, leaving only the hurtful words visible. By removing the pleasantries and qualifications that surround them, the notes reflect the way a single painful phrase can remain prominent in memory long after the rest of a conversation has faded.