“Protection” is both personal and quietly political. On its surface, it is a portrait of a parent and child: a moment of closeness, watchfulness, and enduring bond. But the title carries a dual meaning, expanding the work beyond the familial. My son is a lifelong conservationist, instinctively attuned to the fragility of the natural world. His way of seeing, shaped by being on the autism spectrum, brings heightened clarity, sensitivity, and focus to the systems and politics around him. In this sense, “protection” becomes reciprocal: I protect him as his parent, while he, in his own way, protects the planet and reminds me how to see the world more truthfully. The work reflects a broad range of neurodivergent experiences within our family, reframing difference as insight rather than a deficit. It asks the viewer to consider protection not as control or shielding, but as care, respect, and the honoring of differing perspectives.