Date of Submission

Fall 2012

Academic Program

Photography

Project Advisor 1

Larry Fink

Abstract/Artist's Statement

I went home, back to a space that I’ve outgrown, yet felt a deep need to linger. The experience of returning left me teetering between the past and present. Everything was the same, yet completely different.

In a place where I was once an insider, I became the outsider. But during this process, I was unsure of that positioning. I struggled, trying to find footing in the face of expectations and familiarity, but seemed to fumble at every turn. So I worked hard, grasping onto past memories so intensely that I failed to fully accept the reality in front of my eyes.

In these images you are witnessing someone in conflict. Someone in semi-denial. I revisited places and people that once insured stability. However sensing that something was off, I continued to search, expecting that other places and people would yield more comforting results.

While such efforts resulted in mostly uneasy outcomes, there was still a sense of the past that rose and fell with each interaction. Those pinnacles allowed me to cling onto remnants of what came before. But it was not enough to deter from the fact that some force in the present was working to constantly push it back into the past.

Thus, the work is about noticing and starting to feel (but not wholly realizing) this disparity between the past and the present. Swaying back and forth between witnessing the reality at hand (while also trying to partially suppress it) and trying to re-experience the past, I fought hard to keep my feet on solid ground. I clung onto the past in hopes that it would give me grounding in the present, but this state of wavering only continued. I came to realize that ultimately the only way to stop said fluctuation is to accept ones placement in time. As much as you want to find comfort in old realities, the signs of times passage are seeping through, telling you to let go and go on.

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