Artist Statement: Fuck being too serious. All seriousness all the time is too one-note. It also doesn't make life any easier. And don't we all want life to be easier? I make films, videos, performances, and visual art that deal with play and fantasy as coping mechanisms for pain and trauma. This is my own kind of anthropology. Working in fiction and non-fiction, I draw from my training in journalism, literature, art, and oral history. I create through an observational, comedic, and autobiographical lens—even when you can't tell. To me, personal work is inherently political. My father, an American broadcaster, and my mother, a Salvadoran secretary, met during El Salvador's civil war. Eventually, I was born in Northern Virginia, the first in my family, and the eldest of three. These origins inform everything. Raised a pacifist, I have a social justice ethos and strive to make socially-conscious projects, whether explicitly in messaging or implicitly in terms of labor. My upbringing taught me to be resourceful in terms of materials but also to seek joy and pleasure, especially through food. Most of all, I want to experiment, feel and think deeply, and have a good time.