Felt Like Something Was There...

Do you ever feel like each phase in your life is like moving on to the next chapter in a book? Each telling a story, some leaving you with questions, others so exciting that you stay up all night reading, and some making you feel like you just want to close that book and never open it again.

Felt like something was there... are photographs made from moments that hold deep and intense emotions. The sensations that accompany our experiences linger long after we have moved on from them. When we revisit a photograph, smell something familiar, or feel someone’s touch, these sensory cues can bring us back to the most personal memories and reactivate the emotions associated with those same moments. A photograph can become a portal, allowing us to encounter something from that chapter.

This is a personal story of how someone can feel abandoned and alone, while simultaneously being the person who supported many others, the roller coaster of being everyone’s savior except one’s own. Each chapter represents a part of that journey: the loneliness, the searching, the unraveling, and eventually the realization that I could choose what came next.

The disintegrating of those chapters does not need to mean forgetting completely. Memories remain with us; they become part of the story we carry. But with time, we can begin to see those chapters differently. We can close some books, return to others, and choose which stories we want to continue writing.

For me, that next chapter has been about finding peace in the love and presence of the people who stayed, those who chose to listen, love, and support me without conditions. My chosen family.

Chosen Family Communal Wall

Featured Artists: Abdul-Haak, Alina Balseiro, Anabel Vazquez Rodriguez, Bell Pitkin, Gabriel Sosa, Megan Senturk, Mona Sartoveh, Stella Johnson, Todd Danforth, Vanessa Leroy, Yorgos Efthymiadis

This communal wall brings together photographers and artists whose work explores the idea of chosen family. I wanted to highlight how others are working through what family means. Together, these works explore family through the lenses of memory, identity, relationships, the things we choose to carry with us, places we call home, and the way we redefine what family can mean.

Family can be a particular memory, a place, a person, a feeling of belonging or something within an artist’s practice that opens space for reflection. There is no single definition. Like our lives, family can change from chapter to chapter.

Welcoming the light

Abdul-Haqq

This photograph was taken four days before my wife gave birth to our daughter. It's a portrait of the family I chose. The wife I chose, and the child who, in her own way, chose me.

Twinith

Megan Senturk

Being a twin means growing up with someone who has been part of my life from the very beginning, sharing childhood memories, milestones, laughter, and challenges along the way. As a brother and sister, we have a special bond that is difficult to put into words because we understand and support each other in a way that comes from experiencing so much of life side by side. To me, being twins creates a unique family dynamic and a lifelong connection that will always be an important part of who we are.

Zo and Cisco Hug

Bell Beecher Pitkin

This is a photograph of my two dearest friends, Zo and Cisco, made during a recent trip home to the South. The winter sun was setting as we wandered through the backyard. When we came across the old barn, I told them I wanted to make a picture and they fell into each other’s arms.

Sobrina

Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez

This is a monochrome portrait of a young creative force and important member of my core chosen family.

Fabiola and Frida, CDMX, Mexico 2024

Stella Johnson

Inspired by my grandmothers’ recollections of the villages they were forced to leave, my photographic practice has long explored the rhythms of daily life, as well as the religious and cultural rituals that bind communities together in Mexico, Greece, Nicaragua, and Cameroon. Over decades of photographing in these places, I have developed deep relationships with the people I encounter, and have come to know, respect, and love the communities that have welcomed me into their lives.

These photographs portray my goddaughter, Fabiola, and her daughter, Frida. They are more than subjects of my work; they are my chosen family, and these images are an expression of the intimacy, affection, and enduring connection we share.

Vangelis O

Yorgos Efthymiadis

Vangelis is my best friend and a very important person in my life as he's the first person I came out to when I was a teenager. Now we are both over 50 and live thousands of miles apart but he's part of my chosen family, a group of queer friends and allies who share values, identities, experiences, and memories.

Within

Mona Sartoveh

At this point in my life, home is no longer a geography to me. Through living, leaving, losing, and beginning again, I have come to understand that home is something I carry within myself. The people I have loved, the places I have lived, my memories, my roots, and all the different versions of myself I have met along the way—they are all still here, within me.

I think of myself as part of nature. There are waves, and there is calm after them. There are boundaries and fences, but they cannot contain everything that grows beyond them.

With time, I have learned to recognize these different layers of myself. Each one is a piece of the same puzzle, and together they make me whole.

I don't search for home outside of myself anymore. I carry my home with me.

201 days

alina balseiro

201 days after my gender-affirming surgery, my scars are finally stable and i bathe in a warm embrace. with less weight on my chest, my heart is exposed and i can love my community more intensely. my partner’s arms wrap softly around my body, feeling foreign yet containing the willingness of familiarity.

Michael McConnell and Jack Baker at 83 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2025

Todd Danforth

Queer Inheritance is an ongoing photographic essay exploring intergenerationality through the documentation of elders from the first visible LGBTQ+ community in modern US history. The elders in my biological family passed mostly in my teenage years, taking with them their stories, lived knowledge, and experience. Although I felt cheated out of that historical inheritance, I realized what I was searching for might only be found in queer chosen family; an understanding that my biological elders would likely be incapable of nurturing my gay identity. The environmental portraits in Queer Inheritance explore the profound impact of multi-generational chosen families in preserving culture, protecting collective well-being, and fostering queer identity.

Vanessa and Sharifah

Vanessa Leroy

Sharifah and I have been best friends from the moment we first spoke to each other. It's been 15 years now that we've been sisters. I know I'm lucky in this lifetime because I met her.

ñ press

Gabriel Sosa

Artist Gabriel Sosa launched ñ press, a community print studio and publishing platform, as part of the first Boston Public Art Triennial in 2025. ñ press explores print as public art by embracing its capacity to circulate in the public space while providing opportunities for shared learning. This anthology brings together posters created by ñ press is based at Maverick Landing Community Services in East Boston and includes artists Colomba Klenner, Iz Hall, Riley McLaughlin, and Gabriel Sosa.