Commissioned for Galeria Mola; Braga, Portugal

This show explores family, home, and memory. It came together throughout the process of moving over the last few years and learning how to settle. In my photos, I am searching for a feeling that looking at old personal photographs can bring: the sensation of being grounded and in limbo at the same time; a deep sense of separation while also feeling like I never left. Memories contain layers, and every time you look back, maybe something new is there, an image seeps in from another time and place, or a fantasy that you kept coming back to eventually becomes a memory in itself when you can no longer return to it.

There seems to be a double-edged sword nature to allowing oneself to be enveloped by the comfort of home. WE NEVER LEFT THE HOUSE speaks to this and finds its subjects on the precipice of something—a clear impending change, or underlying forces at work that slowly and discreetly bring about change. I look at my friends and family in these films and photographs and observe that in these moments they are making choices about whether or not to see change as a threat, as a welcome excuse to take risks and grow, or to continue to go about their lives per routine until life makes the choices for them. As I am most comfortable when working with family and in places that I know every corner of, my work feels like a home that I don’t ever have to leave. This exhibition then becomes about identifying my precipice and facing similar types of questions and choices about where to go next if I am to leave this house.