If These Clothes Could Talk

Photo/Video Series, Artist | 2012–Present

I am drawn to these conversations precisely because of that agency. No one is handed a script or steered toward a particular kind of story. I simply create the space — and then I listen, letting each person narrate their own memory in their own words, at their own pace. I've come to think of my participants as the only true authorities on their own lives, and my role is not to interpret their relationship to an object from the outside, but to help make room for them to articulate it themselves.

Over time, this project has become my way of asking a larger question: why do we hold onto certain garments long after they have stopped serving any practical purpose? What is it about a piece of clothing that lets it outlive its function and become something else entirely — a keepsake, a talisman, a quiet monument to a moment in someone's life? I'm also interested in pulling clothing out of the everyday and asking viewers to look at it differently: not just as something worn, but as an object worthy of display and contemplation, as art in its own right. And running through all of it is a deep respect for the craft, durability, and often invisible labor behind each piece — the hands and skill that shaped it, so rarely seen or acknowledged.

In the end, what continues to move me about this work is how much a single garment can hold. A piece of clothing can be a vessel — for a memory, a relationship, a version of ourselves we've since outgrown. Threads and stitches become carriers of stories that might otherwise go untold. Through this series, I hope to honor that quiet, powerful truth: that the things we wear are never just fabric. They are storage for what matters to us, and given the chance, they have quite a lot to say.

Since 2012, I havee been creating If These Clothes Could Talk, an ongoing photographic and video art series born from a simple invitation: sit with me, and tell me about a piece of clothing that matters to you. I do not choose the garment — the participant does. And in that small, deliberate act of choosing, something quietly revealing happens. They show me what they have privately decided is worth keeping, worth remembering, worth putting into words for someone else to hear.