Can you describe three life moments that made you who you are today?
My first moment was in 2009, when a thief broke into my place, and took away everything I had built over ten years in a single day. Every film negative I had shot since high school, my cameras, hard drives, and even my computer. It happened just three days after I returned from a three-month photography project in Niger, Africa. After that, I stopped taking photographs for about two years. The sadness from the loss didn’t last long, but I simply could not see any image within me that I wanted to make for awhile. Photography had felt like my whole life back then, and all at once, that was gone.
My second moment was in 2011, when I took a leave from university and wandered across North America with a friend, living on the streets as homeless drifters. We passed nights in hostels, on street benches, in Greyhound stations, meeting people from all kinds of backgrounds, from those carrying difficult personal stories, to others who had come from privilege. Through those encounters, the world opened itself to us in unexpected ways. I left because I wanted to fully embrace my youth, but also because I wanted to step outside the limits of my own perspective and experience the world on a wider scale.
And my third moment was in 2022, when my father suddenly had to undergo open-heart surgery. During the operation, an accident caused him to suffer a stroke, and my family and I spent the next six months caring for him in the hospital while the left part of his body was paralyzed. It was the first time I had ever stayed that close to him for so long in such a vulnerable state. From meals to the most basic physical needs, we went through everything together. In that time, the way I saw my father, the way I thought about family, and even the way I understood the world began to change. Many of the stubborn beliefs and rigid ways of thinking I had carried within me for so long slowly softened and melted away.
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