Family photographs are powerful artifacts, connecting the viewer to a personal past and evoking nostalgia, love and memories. Photographer Antonio Pulgarin (BFA 2013 Photography) has spent more than three years digging into his own family’s keepsakes to create a body of work that taps into these qualities. Titled "Fragments of the Masculine," the ongoing series explores his Colombian heritage, the conflict between stereotypical ideas of masculinity and Pulgarin's queer identity, and the lives of his late uncle and his estranged biological father.

Pulgarin's uncle, who was his mother's older brother, served in the Colombian military before dying in a car accident in 1987. Two years later, Pulgarin was born and given his uncle's name as a way to honor his memory. Pulgarin's mother, who lives in New Jersey, and other relatives, many of whom still live in Bogotá, have held onto countless photographs of the elder Antonio. Interested in learning more about the man, Pulgarin began building an informal archive from these collections. Portraits of his uncle, he discovered, had an uncanny effect on him. Often, he would recognize glimmers of himself—whether through physical resemblance or a familiar gesture—but overall the images remained foreign and distant, particularly in how they "exuded a hyper-masculine energy," he says.

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