“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” - Tom Waits
On most days, it’s the melody that allures me to a song. Akin to any relationship, the beginning is always the sweetest.
And then a phrase in the lyrics gets me hooked. The part where the songwriter laments about the realities of life - the awful things.
It’s this intermingling of euphoria and misery that entices us to devote ourselves to this chaotic mess, something that we don’t even know if we can survive.
These overwhelming emotions came to me at the time that I was staying alone in Paris, when I was supposed to be living and breathing my dreams. There were so many things that I wished to say but I couldn’t and I shouldn’t. Another one of life’s dreadful things.
Perhaps it’s the universal suffering of heartbreaks that makes melodies and lyrics relatable. And maybe once the dust settles, we get to be serenaded again.
On most days, it’s the melody that allures me to a song. Akin to any relationship, the beginning is always the sweetest.
And then a phrase in the lyrics gets me hooked. The part where the songwriter laments about the realities of life - the awful things.
It’s this intermingling of euphoria and misery that entices us to devote ourselves to this chaotic mess, something that we don’t even know if we can survive.
These overwhelming emotions came to me at the time that I was staying alone in Paris, when I was supposed to be living and breathing my dreams. There were so many things that I wished to say but I couldn’t and I shouldn’t. Another one of life’s dreadful things.
Perhaps it’s the universal suffering of heartbreaks that makes melodies and lyrics relatable. And maybe once the dust settles, we get to be serenaded again.
It was in 2018 when I moved to Paris for a year to pursue my passion in photography. The whole experience was foreign for me, it was my first time attending class that I’m genuinely interested in, my first time living alone, and my first time being away from home for such a long period of time.
I was also trying to process my own loss and grief at that time and all these emotions compounded till I felt overwhelmed. It was a class assignment which prompted me to create photograph and written word pairings that inspired Dear Dandelion.
At the beginning, I was hesitant to put out Dear Dandelion as it’s a personal and vulnerable work to me. But I am curious to see if by extending my project to others, we can find common thread in each other’s stories and forge a universal visual language on grief and loss.
I was also trying to process my own loss and grief at that time and all these emotions compounded till I felt overwhelmed. It was a class assignment which prompted me to create photograph and written word pairings that inspired Dear Dandelion.
At the beginning, I was hesitant to put out Dear Dandelion as it’s a personal and vulnerable work to me. But I am curious to see if by extending my project to others, we can find common thread in each other’s stories and forge a universal visual language on grief and loss.
