My identical twin and I were born in 1984, when sequencing the human genome gathered great scientific and medical minds on a global scale. The hospital where we were born automatically added us to a Twin Registry notifying twin study programs of our arrival. My first memory of a twin study is around seven years old. Two graduate students from The Institute of Behavioral Genetics at CU Boulder came to our house. I was separated from my twin and timed while I arranged colored tiles according to instructions given. It was an hour or more of problem solving tasks followed by a DNA swab. That was thirty years ago and I have participated in many many studies since then, primarily for IBG’s Longitudinal Twin Study. Growing up as twin study subject during the era of The Human Genome Project had a profound impact on me.

The Poetics of Twinship is an ongoing research project about my experience as an identical twin. So far three distinct bodies of work have been made:

Twice Upon a Time (2008-2010)

United Untied (2010-2016)

The Space Between (2017)

Each one introduced me to new approaches for exploring identity. It all began during my graduate studies in 2008 as Twice Upon A Time (2008-2010). I made a decades worth of work in 2 years. I took self portraits, interviewed and photographed my twin, examined xerox prints of her MRI brain scans, read up on any and all things twins, especially Epigenetics, and wrote prolifically in response to my discoveries. Graduate school ended but my infatuation with my twin and me did not.

United U n t i e d (2010-2016) followed. This time I looked more closely at my family’s photo albums. How my Mom labeled the back of the photos picturing my twin and me as newborns immediately fascinated me. It was not only our names and the year the picture was taken but an added note of who was who, “11/11/84 Steve, Kristen and Michele. Michele is on Steve’s shoulder.”

Out of practical necessity my Mother developed a system to help tell us apart in her day to day as well as in the family archive. My grandfather wrote directly on top of his photographs of my twin and me. “M’s” and “K’s” grace our midsections throughout his pictures of our childhood. I also noticed how intentional my Mom was, she gave us our own set of birthday candles even though we shared the same cake. We took turns blowing them out. These behaviors gave me pause. Our comparative response to identical twins existence seems innate.

I was also drawn to our annual school pictures from picture day. I scanned both of our images from kindergarten through 12th grade and arranged them side by side. The standardized format helps our individuality shine. When did we begin to look less like one another and more like two individuals? As annoying as it was to be compared to my twin growing up, I get it now, we’re fun to look at side by side.

The Space Between (2017) is an installation I designed for my solo exhibition United Untied. I merged various mapping techniques that analyze human bodies and territories within the universe and beyond. How we illustrate the breadth of information built in to our DNA reminds me of how we drew maps of the early frontiers of land and sky. I wanted the viewer to have an immersive experience into my research practice .

Due to the overwhelming amount of information I collect and produce, I make research notebooks. I print my work on transparent vellum and photographic paper then play with overlaying images and text. Both Twice Upon A Time and United U n t i e d have a similar spiral bound book format, while The Space Between is a research notebook mapped out on a wall. These books perfectly demonstrate the endless ways I ponder twinship.