now now
video flip-through
Accompanied text from the exhibition, Opening Echoes:
The book “now now” is a body of work I produced between 2018 and 2019 that aims to reconcile with the bitterness and guilt I’ve carried about my adolescence. Incorporating photographs from a five year period, this project documents the development of relationships between the men around me and a lifelong effort to navigate and decipher the bonds between platonic, romantic, and familial ties. Many queer individuals undergo a type of "second adolescence" during their twenties–one that allows them a similar opportunity to experiment and make the mistakes that many of their straight peers experienced as teenagers. Woven into this sequence of images are feelings of both longing for and animosity toward my adolescence—moments that recall an inaccessible, romanticized boyhood. Intimate portraits and vaguely voyeuristic scenes are paired alongside whimsical, atmospheric images that juggle the perspective between photographer, subject, and participant with a sense of play and reverence.