Inside/Out

This is a photograph of Krystal made on color 35mm film in the shower of our apartment on 19th st, that we all lived in together at the start of 2020.

This photograph is a screen capture from Google Earth of glaciers in Vatajökull National Park in Iceland.

This image is a process of finding myself, self-reflection and self-criticism, so as to formally face myself.

“Don’t smoke cigarettes anymore, Weijian. Are you sad? In my impression only sad and frustrated people smoke cigarettes.”

Self Portraiture, A conversation with myself and my feelings in regards to bending the gender norms. Raising questions to myself of who I am.

This is a picture of Prada Marfa, located in Valentine, Texas. It explores the relationship between humans, the commercial world, and nature.

This image is part of a larger series; In Search of Lost Time, which explores place, time, and involuntary memory; one that dispenses with the notion of certainty and instead emphasizes the conceptual aspects of unpredictability, fragmentation, and alternative realities.

A recording of objects that form a non-human representational figure.

This photograph is of helping hands. The younger of the family helps the older. Captured along a stroll of The Embarcadero.

The Inheritance Project is a collection of factual information from both historical times as well as within my own life. The work uses statements as a way of confronting my family history of enslavers and confederates and draws parallels to our country's racist laws and actions. Within this work I explore how racism is evident and inherited in my own life, even when I don’t intend it.

A study of familiar places I frequently visit. I use the cyanotype process to further abstract the image plane and make the photo less formal. Abstraction furthers the narrative of information I'm withholding, to increase the vagueness and intimacy when viewing these places. I like holding the power of what the viewer gets to see of these familiar places to keep a sense of privacy.

I’m interested in negotiating visibility between subject and photographer, and it is important that this work acknowledges the camera, the instrument used to record these interactions. The images are dark and blurry, sometimes approaching abstraction. This is in part because of the low light of the space, but also an intentional choice, to protect, to stretch the identities of my subjects. The subjects maintain their right to be illegible, to be queer in a system that constrains us.

RV Day is an image from the series Boys of Rome, documenting my younger nephews, Angel, Nathan, and cousin Oscar, focusing on the spectrum of Latine or “Mexican American'' boyhood. The children of immigrants become a paradox. We are from neither here nor there. There's an expression for it in Spanish, "Ni de aquí, ni de allá." There's unlearning and self-discovery that the children of immigrants undergo in their life. I want this work to reflect children becoming into their person, regardless of expectations from either Latine or American culture.

This image is tangential to my video project “Morning-Bird.” It was created as another way to view that story. The story of two boys exploring a creek. As the title suggests these boys each have two names, their character names and their own. This distinction stems from the way the film turns in on itself to explore who is making the film. Both that project and still images made around it stem from a yearning to maintain dialogue with my younger self.

This image is part of a series that was made after experiencing a sexual assault 6 years ago. The process of “stripping away” and “replacing” is representative of a transformation of self when exploring how trauma shows up and evolves. Trauma shows up in infinite ways. Making the series has been therapeutic for me.

35mm Black and White. Shot with a Capital plastic camera. Double exposure of tree limbs over man walking.