Statement - Visitor
VISITOR: rebuilding the family album
I've often wondered what it might be like to experience the frozen moments in my family photographs and be connected. I want to understand myself and my DNA so I can experience where I have come from and how these people have influenced my being.
The goal with "Visitor" is to reinterpret my intimate family snapshots, explore time and history, and meet and understand family while blurring boundaries. I’m trying to understand my ancestry and, in particular, my mother and why she is who she is. To understand how I have been put together and created over generations and time through family to become me. I created a look driven by the era of each original photograph, pulling a wardrobe I’ve collected over the years and inherited from my grandmother, a seamstress. By making a composite, I’ve placed myself into each world I want to revisit. I want to understand my family's stories and memories through my research of each image and the feeling of setting myself back at the moment as I wait for the timer to snap the shot.
In my efforts to be authentic to the original photograph, I have matched the format of the original image: some soft grain and blown-out whites help match the old, authentic vintage feeling of each snapshot. Each image is printed in the original size and placed on a black photo album page, similar to how the images were found with white ink and handwritten text to guild the viewer through the album.