When anthropologists discuss culture, they often refer to the joke where one fish asks another "How's the water?" to which the other fish replies, "What the hell is water?" Unless one takes a critical lens to the environment they live in and how it has shaped them, one may miss out on underlying commonalities that give our lives a deeper meaning. This was the case for “Nuclear”, a project in which I examined myself and my immediate family through a more critical (and literal) lens than I was accustomed to.

My favorite shots were the warm and spontaneous ones, such as my nonbinary sibling (now sister) hiding behind a curtain or my father and step-father leaning in for a kiss. I loved these pictures because my family loved them too, but upon my return to Wellesley I was apprehensive as to whether they would hold any value as art. This fear was assuaged as soon as I started arranging prints on the wall; the sizing, presentation, and relations of the photographs to one another I found to be surprisingly compelling. Patterns of habitus, self-censorship or shyness evolving into joyous self-expression fell into a serendipitous symmetry.

These patterns made more sense after revisiting Rie Yamada’s Familie Werden project: “Families are a collection of people that embody the cultural and historical backdrop of the time,” she said in an interview for LensCulture. “I realized that the question of ‘family’ is not one with an easy answer, especially in a time when individuals are increasingly becoming the basic unit of society.” More interesting than portraying the functioning of a family unit was the examination of each family member as a complex individual. The hardest part of growing up has been recognizing that the people I’ve looked up to are just as human as I, and that existing outside of the norm of the nuclear family can be a point of pride, not shame.

I also wanted to explore themes of legacy and truth, which manifested as a ‘narrative arrangement’ (an idea I borrowed from Todd Hido’s exhibitions, where the sizing and placement of each print habituated the body of the viewer to convey a certain meaning ). The monochrome self-portrait in my father’s Air Force helmet is meant to overpower the surrounding images, in order to draw the viewer in and analyze the subsequent photographs in relation to it. The juxtaposition of how my father and I handle bullets, as well as the phone and the composite, are printed smaller and positioned higher in the order (such that the viewer might even have to squint) because while those aspects of my relationship to my biological parents—geographical distance, resemblance and inheriting a legacy of violence—is there, they are not themes I currently assign much value to. The bigger and less marginalized the print is, the more “true” it is to how I view my family, as opposed to how others outside of the Prechtls may view us.