When I am with you
(2026)
Throughout exploring my relationships, I find there is no closer bond than the one I have with my younger sister, Elena. We’ve been interconnected since she was brought home from Guatemala in 2005, when I was two years old. We were known as Jordan and Elena (or Elena and Jordan). As a young child, I hadn’t realized how special it was to have a sisterly bond and to have someone always with you—until we grew up and were heading in our own directions. Hers led her to stay in Virginia to pursue Chemistry and the Arts while mine led me to New York City for Photography. While we’ve been apart for the better part of four years, I realized: I truly missed being with her. In the years I was studying in New York and hers in Virginia, I began recognizing moments in my life where I would see and feel her in my environment, imagining what it would be like if she was here; longing and grieving her absence. With that, I started to document our limited time together—here, there, everywhere—and write about our collective experiences, from my perspective of an older sister watching my younger sister grow up from up close and from a distance. Photographs of portraits that resembled her and us came into fruition through observing a landscape I’m always reflecting on, sans her physical presence. When I am With You is built on twenty-one years of sisterhood; years spent together and apart. We laugh with each other and silently reminisce of what was.
