am i another you?

In March of 2018, my parents hesitantly revealed I am donor-conceived (DC). Unsure of how to feel, I buried the emotions that accompanied this revelation. However, two years later, when I moved back to Nebraska, the state of my birth, I gathered my courage and began to question my identity and my understanding of the meaning of family.

Searching for myself, I stumbled upon the Platte River; I clung to it and the land surrounding it. Following the river, I traveled from its confluence with the Missouri River to the Platte's headwaters in Colorado. In seeking the river's origin, I sought answers to my own. In doing so, the river became an extension of my body. As I wandered, I found traces of people, and in those marks, I discovered a longing within myself to know and be known. This desire directed me home to face the idea of my family as evolving and ever-changing. As I explored ideas of kinship, I collaborated with my family viewing our bodies as the physical evidence of lineage. I photographed hands and limbs as I questioned the influence of nature and nurture.

Growing closer to my kin, my half-siblings, and my biological father has led me to reconsider the stories I’ve been told my whole life. In questioning them, I created my own stories reimagining my birth along the water, weaving together the Platte River and our bodies through imagery and text within a handmade book. Through this, I interrupt the myth of family and question the mystery of donor conception.