The Story of Melpomene: A Tragedy of Loss, Love, and Adulthood

The Story of Melpomene: A Tragedy of Loss, Love, and Adulthood is a visual journal of my life growing up in a single-parent low-income home and dealing with illness. Diagnosed with Fibromyalgia at the age of 14, and Bipolar Disorder and Irritable Bowel Syndrome at the age of 19, I was never given the opportunity to truly be a kid. Being one of the elder daughters in an immigrant household, I had to balance the responsibility of taking care of my younger siblings while focusing on my personal illnesses and school. With a mother busy with medical school, I internalized many of the insecurities and pains associated with being diagnosed with an incurable illness at such a young age. In addition to this, I dealt with the guilt of knowing how much my mother has sacrificed despite the pain she now inflicts on me and her frequent dismissing of my illnesses. As the second mother to my siblings, I had to navigate raising them without inflicting the trauma I've received from my mother and our anti-Black society. 
        Now moving to New York, I am facing similar problems: financial independence, guilt, emotional instability, and loneliness. This series explores parental neglect, sacrifice, substance abuse, sexual autonomy, loss of childhood, anti-Blackness, and ableism through my personal experiences. Taken in my adolescent home in Chicago and my current home in New York, I explore how my intersectional experience between illness and familial obligation has shaped me into the adult I am now. These images are emotional and visual interpretations of essential events and moments that have shaped me as an adult. This series mimics a Greek tragedy, with different acts representing how my illnesses and the theft of my youth have shaped various aspects of my identity and existence. 

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The acts are:
catharsis
act i: chorus
act ii: hamartia
act iii: mimesis

act iv: anagnorisis

act v: peripeteia