Artist Statement
Collections of family photographs and objects stored in rubber bins deep within the basement were an essential part to my understanding of who I belonged to as a child. These tubs provided me with the histories and stories of those from which I’ve come, for I have only ever truly known no more than six of my family members. As time has passed and I’ve grown, the stories ascribed to these sacred items have altered, leaving me with a false sense of reality as to who the individuals I claim to have been family truly are. This has led me to question my own memories, unable to determine what I know to be fact and what I feel I’ve fabricated within my own mind.
You Were Made in My Image seeks to come to terms with the altered memories of those I thought I knew. By arranging imagery and objects from my personal family archive, found photographs that previously belonged to other families, and my own new photographs, You Were Made in My Image pieces together the parts of the narratives that I once believed with the parts I have come to now know. Through combining both what I once believed with what knowledge I have more recently gained, I look not to solve the mystery of who I belong to, but to reveal the person these stories have made me to be. I question the functionality of memory through the manipulation of imagery and text pieced together, creating the narrative of what I believe to be my family’s story. You Were Made in My Image comes to terms with the altered memories of those I thought I knew.
