Tell Me Everything I Know and Everything I Don’t Know is a multimedia project about my family and the process of letting go. When I was 3 years old, I climbed on top of my father as he was lying on the couch, as he was reading a newspaper. I had a globe in my hands and as I plopped down on his stomach I said, “Daddy, tell me everything I know and everything I don’t know”. As my dad tells this story, he cracks up laughing every time he gets to the last line. It’s one of the few memories he has of me as a kid.

My dad has been coping with dementia since at least 2014. He is now 82 years old. 

Part of this project is a body of multiple-exposure images that explore the psychological, emotional, and physical aspects of aging, dementia, memory, and caretaking. Making  double exposure images has opened up a new way for me to explore the complexity of the disease, and has allowed me to portray the confusion, agitation, sense of entrapment that my father often feels, while also showing the humor and mundane aspects that are present day-to-day. It also allows me to illustrate the relationship between my mother (his main caretaker) and my father, and the ways in which this disease has affected their relationship. I have made all of these images in camera, in sequence.