Places of Exchange is a stratified work about art as an act of trading, the objectification of the bodies, and the accountability of photography in the commodification of culture. In this series of assemblages, a one-to-one scale image of a mouth, printed on acrylic glass, overlaps an oversized black-and-white photograph of an antique vessel. I wanted the piece to operate in an ambiguous way, where the accidental and surreal connection between the images promotes a multilayered way of looking, where meanings, interpretations, and even contradictions pile up, looking for a connection that resists being made. The idea of connection, or the lack of it, is ubiquitous in my work and draws from Dora Haraway’s statement about how “Technology is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us. We live in a world of connections, and it matters which ones are made and unmade.” Ira Lombardia, Syracuse, NY, 2023