Personal

In the fall of 2022 I began working on an ongoing photo series entitled Close[t], honoring my late father. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about tangibility, loss, and how we memorialize those we’ve lost through my own process of grief. This collection of photographs serves as my attempt at constructing an abridged “visual archive” of my dad’s wardrobe, with the hopes of preserving this aspect of personhood that will inevitably be forgotten, deteriorate, go to landfill, or simply lose meaning over time. In this collection of photographs, I utilize both black & white and color analog film alongside digital photographs to create two parallel series of portraiture - one in which each article of clothing is staged in an image by itself (shot on film) and another in which I am wearing the clothing (shot on digital). This piece initially took the form of a large-scale installation, it is still a work in progress towards a much larger project. It is my hope to continue this work for every piece of clothing in my dad’s wardrobe, turning my final results into a book - yet another tangible object that may just relieve us of the pressure of ‘needing’ to keep each sock and pair of jeans around forever. But, at this moment in time, the first 52 pieces will have to suffice as I, and as I hope viewers can, grapple with what these items have come to mean as we think about the preservation of a life through artifacts like these.

Close[t]