a bridge both crossed and burning is an exploration of the deepest parts of my mind. Rooted in the recovery of repressed memories of sexual assault, it is an attempt to heal and move on. By juxtaposing the prickly fear of being touched with the brilliant potency of desire, I capture the complex ways in which we share ourselves in relationships. 

Over the years, I have sought out ways to find control over my life, struggling at times with crippling anxiety. I challenge myself to relinquish control by shooting with a plastic Holga camera. The image I see when I take it never comes back to me. I’ll never see that moment again just the way I remembered it. 

As I cope with flashes of my past, I manipulate the camera through extreme over and under exposure; blurring the lines between reality and memory. I have no proof of what violence my body really endured causing my memories to be disorienting or appear as shattered fragments. As I shed light on my past to confront it, it becomes blinding, and fades faster and more violently with each passing second. 

When memories suddenly surface I am faced with strong urges compelling me to write, as it has become a critical component of processing my trauma. Writing is a release, a source for my body to expel these overwhelming emotions when they become difficult to handle. I repeatedly ask questions to understand what happened to me, only to be left with no answers. Through the act of book-making, I make my writings become tangible, malleable, and real. I lay my vulnerabilities in the hands of viewers to hold.

I seek evidence, proof of what he did to me. I turn my camera to my body, a sole witness, traumatized, yet bearing no marks. I expose my nude form both to confront residual effects of assault, to learn not only to accept my body, but reclaim it. While I wear the same skin as that little girl who was incessantly assaulted, I am no longer her.

I believed that escaping that relationship would be the end, but the bridge is still burning.