Remains of Us (a work in progress)

Early in the morning on March 16, 2024, I was standing at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport, at the start of a long-planned vacation. When my phone regained service, I saw three missed calls from my father. My father never calls us. When I called him back, a voice choked with sobs said, “Be strong” . For years, I’ve been terrified that something would happen to him. I didn’t understand: if he had died, how could he have called me? 

Two thousand kilometers away, minutes before my father spoke into the phone, two police officers rang the doorbell at the house where I grew up. My mother answered the door. They asked where her son was. “The older one just left, the younger one is sleeping in his room,” she replied. The officers went up to the attic room, but my brother wasn’t there. One of them finally spoke up. He said they had very bad news.

Remains of Us is a long-term project about how grief reshapes life after sudden loss. Following the death of my 18-year-old brother, just before his final year of high school, I began photographing my family and his classmates during a time usually marked by important milestones such as graduation and the beginning of adulthood.

The work traces how they continue to live with his absence through everyday moments, gestures, and shared commitments that carry his presence forward. Developed in close collaboration with those involved, the project reflects on what remains of someone after they are gone, and what remains of us in the aftermath of loss.