My mom sends me photos nearly every day, and I have gotten in the habit of collecting them. I craft my own photos as a reaction to the ones that resonate with me the most. This call and response encapsulates a kind of non-verbal communication that has defined our relationship over the last five years––phone calls have stood in for physical absences, but photos explain what is better said without words. Occasionally her transmissions arrive in huge packages of strange objects at my front door. My mom is a talented photographer, and she gives me some incredible views of her own life that I haven’t been there to experience. They can be beautiful, disorienting and overwhelming. It is a photo of an ex-partner, but she’s really interested in the light reflecting off his glasses that casts a shadow on the wall behind him. It is the clothes tossed so casually on a chair that gives me pause because she’s bestowed upon them a human form. My responses necessarily culminate in self-portraits, functioning as my check-in with her as much as her diaristic snapshots do for me.
