His Name Is Max
An evolving immersive work incorporating multi-media: photography, film, sound, written works.
When I brought my newborn son, Max, to see a geneticist, he said to me:
“You know there’s a pill you could have taken for that.”
That was my introduction to ableism and to the idea that because my son has Down syndrome, his life could be seen as less worthy.
For seventeen years, I have photographed Max.
What began as a record of one life has become an investigation into perception, belonging, ableism, and the violence of assumption.
This page represents several sections of a larger work currently in progress. Through photography, moving image, sound, and written material, I am exploring the distance between who a person is and who we decide they are before we truly see them.
At the center of the work is Max. Not as a diagnosis, a symbol, or a stereotype, but as a human being I’ve had the privilege of watching become himself for seventeen years.
Max Harrison, in a moment of deep breathing that he learned from Tommy Rosen.
This section of the project is a seventeen-year collection of photographs of my son, Max, and the many layers of who he is. His personality. Through Polaroids, 4×5 film photography and medium format film photography I’m dismantling the assumption that people with Down syndrome are always happy.
More photos will be added to this section soon.
I see this as a wall of images that show the many facets of Max’s personality.
This section is a series of portraits of my son that are distorted by chemistry that’s dried on the photograph. Showing the distortion that happens when looking through the lens of assumption and stereotype.
One of several conceptual films in progress exploring the internal landscape of motherhood, where love, fear, isolation, and hypervigilance coexist with the fierce need to keep my son safe.
In Plain Sight
This is a separate project from above. A three-year documentation of nap time with my son. I began noticing the internal conversation that kept pulling me away from him, and used the camera to bring myself back to where I actually was: with him. The camera became a way for me to focus on the miracles happening right in front of me in plain sight.
