Inspired by the Mount Kimbie album of the same name, Love What Survives is a self-portrait series reflecting on the tumultuous childhood I experienced growing up in a religious household in South Carolina. The collection explores the struggles I had with non-gender conforming expression, fractured identity, fear, and self-rejection caused by the ones who raised me. Feeling unseen, I decided to see myself and create these images.

There are also some supplemental images featuring my childhood room, belongings that are tangible reminders of the experience.

My hope is by externalizing my experiences, I can move on from them and provide others a place to do the same.

I will be printing key photos from the collection and hanging them on walls and lampposts around the city, where the public will be free to ignore, take, or destroy the images. As the photos degrade and disappear while I still possess the original photo files, I will explore the paradoxical relationship one has with personal trauma: the physical fading and degradation of the memory in the day to day, but the inability to completely erase it.