The Garden in Edgewood (2024—current)

Before I learned that Chan Ting was one of my mother’s former patients, I was already close with his children—Sivchristen, Peter, and Salina—and Salina’s daughter, Sophia. Over time, they became more than friends to me; Mr. Ting came to embody a dream of what my own grandfather might have been like if his life hadn’t been taken during the Khmer Rouge.

Salina invited me to photograph their plots at the Edgewood Community Garden in Cranston, Rhode Island. A reclaimed parking lot behind an elementary school, Mr. Ting tends the soil alongside his daughter, recalling memories of his father’s farm in Battambang.

Since Sophia was small, the Ting family has returned to the same plots each year, nurturing vegetables, herbs, and flowers. For Cambodians, gardening is more than cultivation; it is memory, survival, and continuity. Especially for elders like Mr. Ting, the act of gardening carries resilience, patience, and the preservation of flavors that anchor us to home.