“Magical Thinking” is about dealing with outside forces that you cannot control. It is based around my experience processing my mom's battle with cancer, through photographs I took while visiting Florida to help care for her. While there, we also dealt with Hurricane Ian hitting the area and destroying my parent's home. Waiting and watching the hurricane move in, hit, and the destruction afterward is probably the only analogy that I feel accurately describes the absolute bizarre experience of the diagnosis, treatment, and the devastating aftermath of cancer, and just how flexible logic becomes in the face of hope. This is not a documentary project, and not a project about my mom, but rather a project about dealing with powers that are larger than you.

 

“Magical Thinking” is a series of film-based images of Florida, digitally composited with images of the cosmos, along with found images of medical scans, satellite images of Hurricane Ian, and weather charts, arranged in a sequence in a book. It is meant to be held in your hands for a somewhat private experience between the viewer and the story, as each experience is based on the individual.