35 mm film
F1: noun (genetics) The first filial generation, which is comprised of offspring(s) resulting from a cross between strains of distinct genotypes.
"Raise your hand if you can't breathe," my dad said, inserting a couple of bendy straws into my nostrils. I gave him the thumbs up and shut my eyes, trying not to grin. Daddy-daughter time was always my favorite, and this afternoon seemed to involve less calculus than usual. "Alright, here goes… and remember, if something goes wrong, we'll just grow you a new face in the lab. Any face you want." And as I felt the cold alginate rolling over my eyelids, I felt happy and calm. Even when the straws were dragged out by the paste, I knew he was there, so nothing else mattered.In the fifteen years that have passed since my father made a latex model of my face in an attempt to humanize a robot, he has achieved great professional success. The world sees a distinguished, silver-haired professor, trailblazing at the cutting edge of science in a spotlight that grows brighter every day. But in my mind, he is still a giant, shaking cherry trees so I can dance among the swirling petals while he lectures me on drag coefficient and terminal velocity. When I think of home, I see a grinning goofball with an unkempt red beard eating spiders in an attempt to cure me of arachnophobia. And every time I make a photograph, I thank him for introducing me to the art form through the gift of a camera, one of the few possessions retained from his tumultuous youth.
This project is about my two fathers, the intimidating public one whose time I request through two secretaries, and the very private one who dotes upon my mother, his fellow professor and loving supporter of thirty years. I am attempting to reconcile my concepts of these two men and explore our family’s relationships through the two lenses he taught me to use, the camera and the microscope. I make portraits as we talk of future scientific revolution and past childhood whenever I can catch him in the country; when he is gone, I unearth and document the artifacts from his childhood and my own, realizing with gratification that who I am today is a direct product of my unconventional, scientific upbringing. And because of this upbringing, I am drawn to the microscope to explore the bond of blood and genetics that I often feel unworthy of, creating clinical but tremendously personal images that complete the nature vs. nurture question ever present in the mind of an artist born to geneticists.
Through this series, I hope to shorten the distance that has grown between my remarkable parents and myself since I left home at fifteen. I hope to understand better who they are as well as show the public that my father truly is a kind, family man that they can trust with their genomic future; this is a work of apology, an illustration of gratitude, and a show of faith and love.
