My work, Cartilage, focuses on relationships built through moments of play, physical closeness, and everyday conversation. The project began in two personally significant communities, Dorchester, MA and Santa Ana, CA, but it is not bound to these places. Rather, I attempt to understand community in adolescence as a connective tissue that can appear anywhere people care for each other and grow alongside one another. Growing up, I was largely isolated from my immediate family and neighborhood. This absence of community left a desire for closeness and drove me to document these communities. I am particularly interested in the rhythms of play between children. Their imaginative games act as performances of trust and instinctual connection to their surroundings. These dynamics reflect a closeness that I have imagined but never fully experienced. The title Cartilage comes from a story my dad told me about a surgery he performed. He described cartilage as resilient, malleable, and essential for growth. I see community in adolescence as analogous to this: a connective tissue that allows for movement, growth, and emotional expansion. Photographing these spaces is my attempt to grasp this idea of emotional development in our youth. Through repeated visits to these neighborhoods, people have granted me access into their daily lives, allowing me to photograph moments of intimacy among friends, family members, and the larger interdependent community. Within these shared spaces and through subtle gestures, I continually observe how familial bonds form and tighten in an unspoken manner.