ARTIST STATEMENT

2021

I come from a long line of strong women. Women who endured more than they should've despite our small statures and petite figures. Wars, revolutions, invasions, terrorism, things that we just see on TV, as a figment of our imagination. I decided to photograph them, long after their "peak", the pinnacle of their lives. I decided to photograph my mother after she came to America with her parents and little siblings. After she shared a room with her little siblings in high school. After she struggled to assimilate into Los Angeles culture. I photographed my mother after she had 4 children, a husband, and after she became a CEO. I photographed my grandmother after her husband was jailed after they escaped war and bravely brought their children here. After she moved back and forth from country to country, she became a school teacher in every single one of those places. I photographed her memories of her daughter, her grandkids, and her mother. Memory is a strange thing. It's something that we hold so close to us, something we cherish and value; but it gets stripped away from us. Slowly but surely our grasp on our memories loosens, and so does our grasp on reality. I hope to sharpen that line, I hope to make memory more familiar, less strange, and foreign. Foreign like us. Maybe memory is supposed to be strange. Maybe it's supposed to be something we ponder about. Again, time is subjective.