My Sister

In My Sister series, I revisited old family photographs of my sister, who passed away from suicide. My sister's death greatly affected me, and left me feeling guilty and hollow after her death, even though I realized later I was too young to see and understand the signs leading up to her death. As I grow older, I fear remembering less and less of my sister, which I desperately don't want to do because she mattered so much to me when she was alive, and the memory of her life still matters to me today.

In my work, I recreated and reenacted photographs of my sister to try to understand significant or revealing moments in her life that may have led to her taking her own life. I ripped and layered the reenacted photographs and layered them over self-portraits to symbolize how death in a family affects everyone. Recreating photographs of my sister was a therapeutic process for me - it helped me remember my sister and helped me greatly cherish the moments I had with her when she was alive.