Fourteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Utilizing a sequence of images created from public and personal family photographs, the intention is to reclaim the family photo album by providing brief essays that offer insights into the narrative. These images have been recreated and digitally manipulated to depict and analyze the study, with the aim of “reinserting” personhood or self in an often-silent past, visually expressing the complex nature of generational trauma and family history. The analysis of the family archive supplement endeavors to bring into focus what is typically kept out of view through shared and pervasive “collective amnesia.” Thus, the role of the image is of profound importance, as it functions to reveal, remind, and reintegrate “self” and “memory” within a contested, broader social mnemonic context. Consequently, the current analysis emphasizes photography as socialization and the necessity to account for and learn to analyze what is not photographed, both on a macro and micro scale. For what is not captured is intended not to be remembered and will ultimately die in silence. How can public and personal images be used to mask while uncovering a collective/shared past whereby traumatic history is not the individual’s experience of the trauma but rather situated/narrated as being collectively experienced and repressed? It is inseparable from personal and social cultural issues.