Molly Hocking Petrulis

I’m a very sentimental person. This is why I began taking photos in the first place, with the thought in the back of my mind that things don’t stay the same forever. I tend to forget. I forget what I wore the day before, I forget about the homework assignment I had due, I forget that my grandpa died or I forget where I am sometimes. But what’s worse is I can feel myself forgetting who I am, detaching myself from my memories. I think of them like stories I know, rather than events that have happened to me. I want to keep these memories belonging to me, instead of letting them fall away into the archives of my head, while they slowly lose value and drift away.

This project is about my dissociation, and how it affects my memories. Some things that happened to me yesterday feel more unreal than times from 10 years ago. I often question why some of these moments stick to me as much as they do, as not all these moments are the highlights of my life, but upon some reflection I think I connect so deeply with them because they describe me. I am not my things, but the memories behind my things are important to me. I am not my memories, but my memories shape my values and thoughts. I always say “at the end of the day, all you have is yourself,” and I don’t want to forget her too.

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Molly Hocking Petrulis is a photographer raised in Brooklyn. Before the age of six, she lived in her parents homeland of Canada, before moving to Brooklyn, New York, where she found her home. She began making pictures when she was four years old on a pink plastic camera for toddlers, and has been making photos ever since. Molly is obsessed with the idea that images capture time forever. Her work focuses on photography relating to dissociation and memories.

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