The Light Between Us, 2025, Currently on View at Virginia MOCA through Jan 11, 2026

When my partner Jennifer and I first began dating, she was living in West Ghent and I was in Freemason. We later moved in together, first in Lafayette, then in Larchmont, where she passed away in 2022. This year, I moved to a new home in West Ghent, just blocks from where she lived when we met.

This photograph is part of an ongoing body of work exploring grief, memory, and presence. In it, I project a digital image of Jennifer – taken on my phone – onto our shared couch. I lie across from her, looking toward her image, my arm stretched into the space where she used to be. The scene is quiet and domestic, the kind of space we used to share every day. It’s also carefully constructed: a merging of past and present, physical and ephemeral, loss and love.

I chose the theme “Where We Remember” because this work is about how we carry the people we’ve lost with us. How memory isn’t just something we revisit, but something that lives with us in our homes, our routines, and our daily rituals. The act of projecting her image into the space is my way of keeping her close, of acknowledging that she’s still part of my world. I still speak to her every day and look to her for guidance. 

As a conceptual photographer, I use projection to create layered visual narratives that explore how the past lingers in the present. In this piece, her image merges with the fabric of the couch, the light in the room, and my own body, allowing her presence to be seen and felt in a space that is both real and remembered. It is a meditation on what remains.

Dedicated to Jennifer Gibson (1982–2022).