using old family photos, family album is a series of 3-dimensional shadow boxes that challenge the histories and memories depicted in those photos. each box complicates the spatial configuration of the snapshot by bringing certain figural elements forward on different planes, recessing others, creating transparencies, absences, and dualities. as the figures reside on different planes, problems of perspective arise by which the viewer is unable to see a cohesive image from any one angle, and so he must situate himself at various points of view in order to understand the image. overall, the formal effect is one of disjuncture, revealing the intricate and disordered nature of memory formation and how we come to understand our personal histories.

as I become more and more distanced from my immediate family, both geographically and psychologically, I am interested in describing a more layered and partially deconstructed family history. the addition of text to the family photos acts as a way of captioning new narratives, in some ways obliterating the previous readings of the photos, decontextualizing the family members and creating different relationships between them in the spaces depicted. the use of the familiar genre of the family snapshot calls to mind the interactions between parents, children, and siblings and speaks to the memorial function of photos. by upsetting the “normal” family depicted in the cultural coding of the snapshot, the medium turns back on itself, critiquing its own function of promoting the memory of a pleasant family event and emphasizing the discontinuities in personal identity as it is contextualized within the family.