SQUATTER

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When I was 19 years old, I met a group of squatter squads in San Francisco.

 

They were anarchists, living in abandoned buildings, sleeping under highway overpasses, and sometimes jumping onto the freight trains to travel illegally across the United States.

I felt the urge to get to know them better, living with them and releasing the shutter buttons like crazy.

 

One uneventful day, our friend, Evo died on the street by overdose.

Troll, his best friend, was deeply shocked by the loss and cried his eyes out for over two weeks.

The purity of his madness as he desperately resisted the death of Evo was simply beautiful.

As a bystander, I just continued to photograph their lives obsessively.

 

The vivid experiences I had with them are still the starting point of my own photography. Even now, I spend time with them, sometimes for more than a month, and continue to take their photos as they jump onto the freight train.