“When We are Together” is a documentation of my contrasting personal relationships: my family in Singapore and my recent partner in New York City. The images in the series attempt to juxtapose a sense of disconnect and intimacy, while maintaining a sense of emotional parallel between the two contexts depicted in the project. Having lived alone since I was 14 years old, I spent the majority of my teen and adult life on my own. I had been in a relationship with Jesse not long after I moved to New York City in 2009. Coming from a rather conservative Christian Indonesian-Chinese family, homosexuality is not the desired preference. Awkward and uncomfortable, the images from the two facets of my life grapple together to create an intimate narrative. This project is a means to reconcile my detachment from my family with an intimate detail of my personal life that they have yet to discover.
Alex Thebez
