My thesis is about cultural identity. Specifically the disconnect of Filipinx identity. I wanted to portray these feelings, stories, moments of disconnect, so I reached out with many filipinxs in the GTA to showcase their moments of what disconnects them from the culture. Based on the immigration experience and Asian Diaspora in the West, this…
Let’s reevaluate our perceptions of private versus public life. I want you to understand that it’s not pretty, it’s raw, and it’s ugly. In the words of Mia Mingus, I would rather be “ugly—magnificently ugly” than “beautiful,” because I am flawed and sometimes need the space to remember that. I move on crip time, as…
Memories of Home is an ongoing project consisting of a photo series and video of the memories I captured while living in my hometown in Vietnam, where I grew up most of my life before moving to Canada, during high school. As a Southeast Asian queer and trans person, I’ve struggled with finding a sense…
Shrieking Sisterhood is a series of photographs that confront the historical fallacies of female hysteria. Consisting of object studies, trail cam imagery, and landscapes, this series uses techniques pulled from documentary photography as a way to explore the relationship between truth and image. Constructed faux documents loosely spread within the book aim to examine the…
Close To You illustrates the bonds between best friends at different life stages. A best friend is someone you see yourself reflected in, two entities that exist separately but become one. To document best friends is to document an identity at a specific moment, a way to memorialize a period and who you were at…
Fantasia illustrates a magical world that is completely other and full of whimsy. This world reveals the landscape of our dreams and daydreams. People often become enthralled in make-believe worlds because these worlds can give voice to the unheard, unspoken, and unseen dark underside of reality, which many people feel so profoundly but cannot articulate.…
Finding Comfort Under The Sky is a conversation between past and present, attempting to reconcile the cultural duality between the Philippines and Canada. My personal history and identity are negotiated through staged portraiture, objects, and scenes to bring a desire to mend past wounds and forge a sense of hybrid identity. I contextualize my environment…