“Abort, Retry, Fail?” is an introspective analysis of cognitive disability (ADHD), mental illness, and the hereditary qualities of both mental and cognitive dysfunction, along with the transference of trauma from one family member to another.
“Abort, Retry, Fail?” aims to take a microscopic view of my struggles with ADHD, depression and anxiety, as well as examine the roots of family trauma. The hereditary qualities of all these conditions have long held interest and dark shadows for me. After finding myself living back home at the age of thirty-five in my teenage bedroom that has long been stripped of any evidence of my former occupation and has been decorated with family photographs and stuffed full of children's toys belonging to much younger step-siblings of whom I am not close with, I have come to a reckoning with myself and my family that I have decided to confront with photography.
The daily feeling of living on the set of a David Lynch film has crept into my consciousness as formal and posed photographs of myself and step-siblings stare back at me from the walls of my room and have become central to work and the idea of the disconnect I have with the rest of my family. Generations of toys have become props, and the uncertainty of levitational flight has become a gesture towards my own divided and confused state of being that mimics one’s freefall into the unknown. I neither recognize the portrayal of myself nor understand how these strangers who surround me constitute my family.
Visual representation of ADHD paralysis, cognitive glitches akin to computer errors, the blurry doubled vision of anxiety attacks, and the overwhelming dark spots like a monolith eclipsing the sun all stand in as actors playing out the script of daily life as it has come to be for me. Late-night insomnia thoughts have been translated to photographs from my family photo album in an attempt to reclaim the stolen smiles that falsely occupy too much of my past in lue of purposely selected “happy” moments catered to the peace of mind of my elders who would instead remember things differently than I experienced them.
The banks of the river in my hometown have long been a place of refuge, and I find myself returning to them in my times of crisis. A portrait of a people and a place that hardly ever changes has begun to emerge alongside a picture of myself and the changes I want to achieve yet fail to realize time and time again, leading back to my hometown and questioning how this keeps happening to me. The image-making process is integral to understanding who I am and the space I occupy, and the camera has again become a tool for uncovering hidden messages and deciphering them.
“Abort, Retry, Fail?” is derived from the computer error of the same name and serves to be the basis for my thesis on cognitive disability, mental illness, and hereditary family trauma while holding onto the hope that failure is a question and not an absolute in my search for reprise in my current darkness.