Before Personality Crash ever became a touring exhibition, it started as a daughter trying to stay close to her father while his body and mind were changing.

Safi Alia Shabaik, a Los Angeles–based Egyptian-American fine artist and photographer, has long explored themes of identity and the human condition. Her work has been exhibited nationally, featured in the New York Times, and recognized with honors such as PhotoLucida’s Critical Mass Top 50, and supported by a National Endowment for the Arts grant in partnership with the Parkinson’s Foundation.

You can explore more of her work at www.flashbulbfloozy.com and on Instagram at @flashbulbfloozy.

But the heart of this work isn’t the accolades. It’s Safi’s role as a daughter and caregiver. When her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she turned to the camera as a way to connect, to process, and to hold on to him as the disease progressed.

PCAC recently helped connect Safi with Duke Health for an exhibition and workshops at the 2025 Duke Caregiver Community Event. We spoke with her about how Personality Crash began, what caregiving demanded of her, and what it meant to share this work in a room full of carers.

How did this project begin for you — was it planned, or did the act of photographing grow naturally as your dad’s condition changed?

Personality Crash evolved out of another project. Around the time of my father’s diagnosis, I began filming a documentary about his life, hoping to capture his immigrant success story in his own words: his journey from Egypt to America, building a new life, meeting my mom, raising a family, owning a home, and ultimately achieving the American Dream. I envisioned a series of interviews supported by old photos, Super 8 films, family memorabilia, and possibly even a trip to Egypt to speak with his siblings and extended relatives.

We began to make these films in 2013-2014, in the early stages of Papa’s diagnosis. His Parkinson’s diagnosis created a sense of urgency, bringing his mortality to the forefront in my mind. But early on in the filming process, it proved to be physically exhausting and difficult for him to be recorded due to his Parkinson’s. Realizing that this undertaking was too overwhelming for him, I pivoted and suggested we document his journey with disease instead. Thankfully he was amenable to that.

Photographing his journey came naturally. Throughout my life, I’ve turned to my camera to interpret the world, especially to process major events and traumas. As an artist, it is my natural instinct to create through a lens. As a documentarian – to embrace whatever gritty reality unfolds in front of me. Papa and I had had this unique connection through photography at various stages in our lives, so it made sense to use this medium to explore this unknown journey.

What has it been like to hold both roles — as daughter and as an artist documenting what’s happening?

I don’t think I necessarily felt dual roles between daughter and artist. But I definitely felt the distinction between artist and caregiver. Balancing caregiving and documenting simultaneously had many challenges, especially in Papa’s final year. I would either have to manage one hand on him and one hand on the camera, find a way to stabilize him before making an image, or photograph around moments when others (my mom, sister, or Rosa) were managing Papa’s needs.

My father was an active participant and collaborator in this body of work until his last day, and would often tell me to get my camera on days when I felt zapped and had both hands focused on managing his care.

As your dad’s illness progressed, how did your sense of caregiving shift or deepen?

There just came a point where I put my frustrations aside and made a conscious decision to fulfill this role for my father. I realized that it meant putting parts of my own life on hold. I mentally prepared myself to be ready to do the uncomfortable things you sometimes need to do for someone you love (like wipe them, feed them, clean up their messes) and take on anything that would come our way. Caregiving is selfless work and is emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting. I basically gave myself an attitude adjustment and realized the true gift I was gaining by having this immersive time with my father.

To be honest, I had not anticipated or intended on becoming my father’s caregiver. But it was worth all of the emotional and physical hardship to have that quality time with my father and to be able to give him the gift of dying at home, in the home he built for all of us.

When people look at these photographs, what do you hope they feel or notice first?

I hope my father’s humanity and dignity shine through and that viewers feel the love with which this project was made. I hope the project helps erase stigma around disease and that viewers see themselves in the moments captured, realizing that this could be any of us at any moment.

Our long-term intentions are to bring visibility to an overlooked demographic and raise awareness about the multifaceted complexities of Parkinson’s disease, aging with disability, end-of-life care and dignified death. Our hope is to stir up emotion, compassion, and empathy in the viewer.

How have you chosen to share this work so far, and what guided those choices about what to make public?

It has been very important to me to be respectful and thoughtful about how and where I release this work in the world. I equate caring for this project after my father’s death the same as caring for him in life, and I am very protective of this work. About six months after my father’s death, still deep in grief, I attended a photography workshop at a portfolio review. Feeling it was a safe space, I shared images from Personality Crash. The instructor, Jonathan Blaustein, was deeply moved and, with my approval, pitched the work to The New York Times. His article ran with several images on August 31, 2018.

From there, the Parkinson’s Foundation reached out to collaborate. Together, we applied for an NEA Visual Arts Grant to bring my father’s journey to life as a layered multimedia exhibition in Los Angeles and Chicago, which miraculously got funded! Each exhibition included educational programming: my artist talk and moderated panels with experts covering topics of family caregiving, Parkinson’s and creativity, patient advocacy, and dying with dignity. My panel guests included Creatives living with Parkinson’s, Neurologists and Movement Disorder Specialists, Palliative Care and Hospice Experts, End-of-Life Doulas, Planned Death Experts, and others. For me, it was crucial to use this moment to give visibility to Creatives living with Parkinson’s and provide a platform for their voices.

The cherry on top — additional exhibits have blossomed from this. Personality Crash has been invited to other states to be on exhibit, most recently at the 2025 Duke Caregiver Conference.

What was the experience like presenting at the Duke Caregiving Conference – anything people said or asked stay with you?

Every time I share this body of work, it is humbling, and the Duke Conference was no exception. Presenting my family’s journey to professional carers was especially meaningful.

Attendees’ feedback on my presentation and exhibition brought me to tears. The overall response was that it “left a lasting impression,” describing it as “phenomenal, worth the whole day, and breathtakingly beautiful,” with lessons valuable both personally and professionally. Knowing that my family’s experience has made this kind of impact reaffirms the value of sharing it and reinforces that we have achieved something meaningful.

During both sessions, I opened the floor to questions. One carer asked what the healthcare system could have done better for us. When we transitioned to Hospice, I felt abandoned by the healthcare system. Structural shortcomings meant the Hospice doctor visited only once for intake, and nurses came sporadically, rarely the same person twice. This inconsistency caused my father anxiety, fueling paranoia and distrust, and forced us to repeatedly re-explain his condition. Consistency is everything when caring for someone with degenerative brain disease and cognitive issues.

Looking ahead, what are your hopes for this project — are there new directions, or audiences you’d like it to reach?

I hope to finally make a high-quality monograph for Personality Crash. I hope to find a rhythm to keep this exhibition on the road, so it can do the good work it is mean to do educating the public.

I hope to find more funding to expand certain aspects of the exhibition. And I hope to find the right museums and institutions to add the exhibition to their collections and reach a wider audience. It is my dream for the work to tour nationally and internationally.

My pride for my father and his contributions to humanity keeps growing — an educator in life, he has now become an educator post-death.