Family archive

Family photo from the 1960s

Both images from Erik Kessels exhibition “Album beauty” at Rencontres d’Arles, 2013

I’ve taken up the humongous task of sorting through my family’s photos, displaying them chronologically and finding their associated context. It’s likely to take me a very long time especially as I’m doing this in between my own projects. But I can’t stop thinking about the purpose of what I’m doing. The meaning of the photos, as time passes, is shifting between a link to memory to one of personal history, as many of the people are already gone. I find myself recalling an exhibition I saw at Rencontres d’Arles by Erik Kessels, and his display of found photo albums.

I have a fascination with vernacular photography. It has no intellectual intent, no artifice. It’s just ordinary people trying to fix a memory. Perhaps I will use some of the images in my own work, which is a thought that brews in my mind as I organise the images, which date back to the 1930s. It’s a very large family with branches that spread wide. But right now, it’s all question.

Albums and piles of photos in my studio