boy behind bars
like Father, like
overwhelmed
ripped apart, torn-up, and made not-whole
what's a woman to do
Artist’s Statement:
Collectively titled "Captivity," the photos individually titled "ripped apart, torn-up, and made not-whole," "what's a woman to do?," "like Father, like," "overwhelmed," and "boy behind bars," derive from an archival project centered around my family. The main subject of the series, my uncle, experienced a great deal of hardship caused by his parents' divorce and subsequent abandonment. He spent many years in prison, the cause of which he traces back to the disintegration of his family.
By rediscovering and restoring these photos, I hope to help my uncle rediscover and restore the child depicted in them.
Jacob Moniz (He/Him) is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, NYU, and the University of Notre Dame. His creative work has appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Penumbra, Chicago Quarterly Review, Southeast Review, and The Ocotillo Review, among other journals and publications. He is the recipient of a grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame, which he used to fund a multimedia arts project based on his family history in São Miguel, Azores. He has since been selected as a 2023-2024 Fulbright Student Researcher to continue work on this project in Portugal.