When did I stop knowing you?

Ciaran and I are one year and eleven days apart, and for most of our early childhood, we shared everything: clothes, bedrooms, baths, and birthdays. We were each other’s best friend, but eventually that ended. We grew up and away from each other. I hadn’t realized how wide the distance between us had grown until our early 20s, when Ciaran came out as transgender. I asked myself, “When did I stop knowing you?” How long had Ciaran known this about himself, and why had I not noticed? 

When I began to question my own gender identity, I reached out to Ciaran for guidance. I wanted to know him and myself and finally confront the questions that had been simmering unspoken for years. The collaborative artist book in this exhibition is the result of our collaboration and renewed relationship. Together, we pulled images from our mother’s archive of family photographs and responded in two narratives that wind in and out of each other. The book serves as a queer archive of feelings–it is not a static collection of images, but a generative effort to recontextualize and rebuild our relationship from the fragmented and foggy memories of our shared early life. 

Complementing the book is a paper installation that abstracts the forsythia bush we used to play in as children. In that bush, together, we could do anything and become anyone. The paper was made by piecing together abaca sheets of varring sizes and embedding lasercut forysthia flowers. The sheets are then pieced together and left to dry without restraint. I hope that in that installation you find yourself transported and transformed–that you question the barriers of time and distance that separate you from others and yourself.