“Can I Go Home Now?” 2013

“Can I Go Home Now?” is an installation piece shown at SVA’s 2013 Open Studios.  Overall, it asks the question to the viewer if they want to know more, are the willing to interact with a stranger’s truth.  A hundred polaroid photos were taken over a 5-month period post Superstorm Sandy which leveled my home city of Long Beach and many of the lives of the people I love.  Also pictured were other traumas happening simultaneously such as my grandmother dying of dementia, my cousin in active drug addiction, my niece living in the chaos she had no right being around. But there were also lighter moments pictured, laughter and levity.  I chose to blow up the seven most compelling and write letters to those moments and people pictured.  I used basic raw wood, much like the materials rebuilding my ocean-soaked home and placed the letters inside.  

I wanted those who came in to have the choice of carrying the burden of my truth. With all interactions we gage how much honesty we give, simple questions to acquaintances such as, “how’s it going?” or “how have things been?’ are laced in hidden social ques. We are also reminded that everyone around us has trauma, and at any given moment some people are more burden than others, they may not have the ability to hold space to listen.  I was in an active state of trauma under immense pressure to create for my final show and all I had was my truth.  I didn’t want to victimize myself, therefore not laying out an entire narrative, but rather having the viewers have consented for a shared moment of honesty.