ZUHAUSE

I grew up in a motel in the small town of Pine Brook, a part of Montville Township, New Jersey. Money magazine ranked Montville the 13th best place to live in the United States of America. However, there are pockets in that township in which the living situation was far from ideal. The motel I grew up in was one of those pockets. I remember not having a window or door to my room. I remember when I was nine or ten years old being sexually assaulted by someone I thought of as a childhood friend. I remember how that stark contrast between my living situation and the surrounding area made me feel like an outcast from an early age. I grew into my adolescence thinking to myself that I was never good enough, or that no matter what I did it would never amount to anything. The works of Richard Billingham, Elinor Carucci, and Nan Goldin have been heavily influential to me. I am naturally drawn to the snapshot aesthetic, harsh flash, and awkward composition in an effort to reclaim the memories of my childhood. When I began making these photographs, I was interested in the diaristic nature of my images. I wanted my photographs to reference the style of the family photo album to serve as an entry point to nostalgia. Through them, I wanted to challenge viewers to experience my story. But ZUHAUSE isn’t just about documenting my parents and myself. It’s about growing up and confronting the notions of identity, isolation, loneliness, family dysfunction, memory, and trauma we have all faced. It’s about the daily struggles, reflecting on the past, accepting the situation, and beginning to move on. It’s about a girl who hated her parents for subjecting her to such a hostile environment, while trying to avoid judgment by her peers because of a living situation she didn’t have any control over. It’s about parents who endeavor to keep a roof over our heads, but still fail to keep us safe from the society we’re living in. Above all, it’s about the human condition.