Photographs from Syria and Palestine.

Decomposition does not happen in isolation. You cannot decompose alone.

Instead, I presented: One large mason jar (32oz) filled with ashes—the remains of my “Morning Pages.” The lid was screwed on tightly, a white label featuring my best penmanship: “RIP Father Figures.”

“I wondered if I was the one who had taken a funny turn. One can take a turn for the worse or the better. But taking a “funny turn” is ambiguous and enigmatic. I wondered what the original Italian phrasing was for this.”

I suppose in every discipline, the threat of artistic integrity being tainted by money is inescapable. I’ve been thinking about this alongside something…about how the imagination is not free, and there is no version of it that exists in a vacuum, untouched by the hierarchical structures of society.

I thought about the elements of a thriller, as a genre: danger, death, uncertainty, violence, crime, corruption. Certainly all of these things are in the ether as we speak; and suspense, well, we are all undeniably suspended in some way right now.