Paralytic States is an ongoing image-text project which combines auto-theoretical essays with photographs taken across the United States. The project began during the 2016 election cycle when I first traveled from New York to California in order to make images of America as it was undergoing a massive political shift. Against this backdrop, I too have been undergoing monumental changes within the way that I view myself, slowly coming into my identity as nonbinary/trans*.
Written over several years, the essays act as fragmented vignettes situated within a loose narrative. They straddle the space between memoir and manifesto, utilizing a queer/closeted epistemology to consider questions relating to community, country, and identity.
Taken together, the photographs and essays work in concert to produce an intertextual dialogue that is both intimate and political. What emerges from that conversation is an uncertain document of the last several years.