dis.place

dis·place is a series that started out as a journal and has gradually become a visual study on letting go.

We have all lost someone. Everyone has had to leave… everyone is searching… everyone holds on to memories. We've all had a connection that refuses to break. At some point, we have to find our own place in the new scheme of things.

This project is about that period of transition: when we're neither here nor there, now or then, and everything that defined us needs to be seen from a distance. Then it can fall back into place and fit perfectly… but can everything fit perfectly all the time? Are we still the same people? No matter how much we try to change in our lives, does it make a difference? Who decides who we become? Does a part of us stay with the ones we've left behind? Are we ever completely whole?

sanguis.sanguinis

A hand-cut and hand-bound book exploring the potential different personalities and lives of relatives I never got to meet, or knew very little about.

The images used were passed down in my family for at least 2 generations, yet somehow none of my living relatives could give me basic information about some of the people featured in this book. Their stories have either faded from memory or rivalries shaped their narrative into something they no longer can control.

I find myself intrigued by how some stories are purposefully not maintained for posterity, how these people chose to present themselves to the world when these photographs were taken, yet how easy it was for me to just invent personalities and stories for them that are likely not true at all. This exploration is particularly timely given our image-obsessed society filled with people who would rather document themselves rather than enjoy a particular moment, in hopes that they can control their narrative once they’re no longer here to speak it.

the yellow suitcase

A commissioned art book created for Advocate Arts, an Atlanta non-profit organization that worked to heal victims of human trafficking and violence through dance.

The Yellow Suitcase is an interpretive dance developed by Advocate Arts’ Executive Director, Laura Blatterman, that tells the story of a young foster who kept their entire life in a yellow suitcase while being herded from home to home in search of a safe place to land. The art book was created in conjunction with the performance and is specifically designed as an accordion book to illustrate the fragmented, twisted and unstable world of the protagonist.