Departures

Finn D.

• Artist Statement

  The medium of the short story aligned with the feelings of this work. I wanted to convey in a moment, as ordinary as taking the subway, an experience thousands of working-class people have, familial pressures, dreams, and realities. This is about the legacies that are generational—but also about breaking free of those narratives—and taking the risk to change. I utilized a few underlying methods to convey the mood of this piece. The moving train symbolized repetition, speaking to the persistence of this generational cycle, the train like the girl's life is tethered to a track, a track someone else constructed. The element in question here, which it is up to the reader to decide: is leaving her family and the pressures behind for her own future a just sacrifice?

• Creative Statement

  To me, creative journeys are all about truth-making and empathy. When I create I find truth and power which inspires and makes me question what I have been told to believe. Art and writing allow me to layer, to capture thousands of realities in one work. Creativity is my root system, my nucleus.