┐ roots & fruits #9 – Miguel Godinho └

Posted on October 20, 2012 by N

Miguel Godinho’s (b. 1984) photography is not easy to describe, not because it is abstract, overly conceptualized or devoided of content, but because it is simple (albeit symbolic) and unpretentious.

Miguel’s body of work fluctuates between intimate moments and a sterile portrait (in the composition) of the world around him. The domestic scenes reveal some kind of obsession with the question of identity, dependent on family history and memory. On the other hand, the outdoor photographs accentuate the distance between nature/landscape and an environment built/invaded by man.

While the images vary from landscapes, portraits and still life, the empty spaces within the narrative allow us not only to understand the author’s personal journey as well as how it forms part of a sociological portrait of his country and its culture.

More of Miguel’s work here

┐ Scott Alario └

Posted on October 19, 2012 by N

“I’m in the process of building a folk tale for my daughter. It is a paternal inevitability to make up stories for one’s children, and for me, doing so has recently become the passion in my creative practice.

There are two photographs I remember from my childhood that play directly into this work. The ﬁrst is a studio portrait of my father’s mother, made immediately before leaving Italy to immigrate to the United States. We would call the photograph the “gypsy picture” while I was growing up, and in doing so the image has taken on a magic, epic role. In the picture, my grandmother stands stoic as an eight year old. Her timeless eyes represent so much to me. In her face is the face of the 100-year-old woman I know now and it’s the face of my daughter. It is one of wisdom and will, and it ﬁlls me with awe.

The second picture that I carry in my mind is a portrait of a Sami family, reindeer herders of northern Scandinavia. Magic ﬂ ows out of this image, too. It comes from my mother’s mom, whose Norwegian bloodline is only ﬁ ctitiously connected to the Sami. Although I imagine being related to these people, the image hangs in the house like an offering to our ancestry. I see the face of my late uncle in the proud, piped and weathered hero of the portrait. Having a child has got me thinking about the importance of cultural myth and ideas of ancestral wisdom. In my baby I can see our connection to the past, as well as the potential to leave bits of ourselves to posterity.

My recent work deals with my fear of failing as a father, and attempts to make something of the successful moments. I use photography to engage my daughter. Together we construct images, she leads at times, and at others I beg her to stay still. She has become, simultaneously, the impetus, a participant, and the audience. Ideas for pictures come through play; dressing in costumes we make, becoming characters, going back into nature, erecting forts, and telling stories. Inspired by those two relic-like portraits, and driven by a deep love, these images are a collaboration with my whole family through time.”

Scott’s statement. More of his great work here

┐ Helga Härenstam └

Posted on September 3, 2012 by N

The Society is a fictious documentary, trough which Helga Härenstam has been looking for and/or constructing environments, scenes and events, that are based on memories from the small society where she grew up. The people photographed in these series are Härenstam herself, her family and other people that she is close to.

The series is a puzzle of pictures dealing with the borders between documentary and staged, the real and the unreal and the past and the present. The title The Society, is inspired by a place, where Helga Härenstam partly grew up. This place does have a name, but is simply called ”the society”. Härenstam found the ambiguousness of the word society interesting though it refers to a context of world politics and states that shut in and shut out citizens depending on where they are considered to belong. At the same time it refers to this small community, which basically functions in the same way, just on a minor scale.

The Society tells several stories about growing up in a rural area that slowly becomes abandoned. A transitional place is formed between the past and the present ways of how the society functions and between the past and the present way ones memory functions.

taken from HIPPOLYTE STUDIO

more of Helga’s work here

┐ Carla Cabanas └

Posted on March 13, 2012 by N

“What remains of what once was – Cabanas Álbum), the artist invokes memory imprecision through erasing, scratching, and fading away of images belonging to her closest surrounding: family. The photographic processing torn off – accumulating in the bottom of the frame – erases information on spaces, context and characters. Just like we all unwillingly discard our personal history, until what remains is but ashes from times gone by.”

by Valter Ventura

More of Carla’s work here

┐ Heidi Kirkpatrick └

Posted on February 1, 2012 by N

“Portland based photographerHeidi Kirkpatrick uses photographs to transform found objects into playful pieces of art. Her images reveal a view of the world experienced by women and she prints them on film positives which she mounts within or on found objectssuch as vintage tins, blocks, boxes, copper plates, dominos and children’s toys. These wonderfully unique pieces can be handled, arranged and adorned on a table rather than hanging on a wall, allowing each object to possess its own unique interactive charm.

(…)

Kirkpatrick has struggled with a fair amount of physical pain in her life and feels that by dissecting Gray’s Anatomy and using it in this latest project it has helped her to work through her anguish. When creating the image, she prints the photograph on a film positive in the darkroom, develops it in trays, selects a page from Gray’s Anatomy then works on the pairing until she finds a combination that visually stimulates her.”

excerpt from text by Susan Burnstine

More of Heidi’s work here

┐ Amanda Tinker └

Posted on January 16, 2012 by N

Palladium Print 8″x10″

“My latest work, still in progress, explores the intersection between the psychological landscape of family relationships and the body’s physical form, compromised, intact and otherwise. This work deals both specifically with the physical effects of a degenerative nerve disease in my family, and generally with the anxieties, joys and ambiguities of family life. I want to confront my own anxieties over my children potentially developing a debilitating illness, but at the same time appreciate the simplicity and overwhelming urgency of childhood.”

More of Amanda’s work here

┐ Tina Jokitalo └

Posted on November 29, 2011 by N

Tina’s work here

┐ Nigel Grimmer └

Posted on July 17, 2011 by N

“Nigel Grimmer takes the conventions of family album snap photography and gives them a weird twist that is at times amusing and at others faintly unnerving. Here the self-conscious poses, the banal compositions, the suburban settings are infiltrated with the kinds of surrealistic incongruities that one might experience in particularly bizarre or embarrassing dreams. His Roadkill Family Album is a collection of prone portraits of family members dolled up in joke shop animal masks and seemingly abandoned as roadside victims. Grimmer’s mother is an owl, his father a frog. His use of plastic masks and dolls imbues the images with a particularly kitsch and almost perverse form of nostalgia. It’s as if childhood memories have been inextricably confused with some kind of metamorphic and macabre fairytale.”

quote from Harley Gallery

Nigel’s home here

┐ Kurt Tong └

Posted on July 17, 2011 by N

“Last year I was helping my mother sort out all the family photographs. Apart from the customary family portraits in front of the same Christmas trees and behind birthday cakes, most of the photos taken of my brother, my sisters and me were during our day trips out at various parks.
I have just a few memories of these pictures being taken. However, I still have such vivid memories of all the parks we used to go to. The penguin bins, the bumper cars, the trains and the ice cream stalls are all so clear in my mind, little snippets of memories that make up my childhood. Sadly, nearly all of these parks have long since disappeared, forever living only as memories.
This project explores similar recreational spaces found in China. In 1958, at the beginning of “The Great Leap Forward”, when private ownership was banned, many existing parks were renovated and new parks were built all across China for the people. Many were renamed People’s Park. Over the years, they became main focal points of the cities, where families had their outings and couples met. Children’s amusement parks and zoos were often built within these parks to provide entertainment for the local kids.
China is changing at a staggering pace. The “economic miracle” means that the Chinese are enjoying a much more affluent lifestyle. Shopping and internet have replaced bumper cars and Ferris wheels. As China continues to “progress” and embrace capitalism; many of these parks, a fundamental part of Communist China, have become dilapidated. However, many workers are still employed by the government to maintain these parks, and they remain open for the people.
Millions of older Chinese have grown up with these parks and have memories of time spent in them. Just like the parks, it is quite likely that personal memories of the parks are slowly fading away with time. Like the family photos I have, the photographs in this series act as a record of memories that may soon disappear entirely.”

More of Kurt’s work here

┐ Tim Roda └

Posted on July 12, 2011 by N

“I started using photography, not for the love of the technical aspects of the medium, but because of its properties, both abstract and physical. It is the only medium I can use to best depict my vision of life, art and time.
Although the final product is a photograph, the work casually travels within arenas of installation, photography, film and performance. A camera is used to record one moment in time that balances between memories and constructed commentaries, yet is a documentation of “real” events for my wife, Allison, and son, Ethan.
(…)
When asked about the irregularity of the margins in my work, I explain that there is a relationship between the apparent contempt for the materials and the reverence for the subjects of the imagery. I have always said that the subject is the most important part of my work. I understand that for people from photography backgrounds the technique of my work is very distracting to the content. My work is all about metaphor. The rough edges, irregular margins, erratic fixer stains, and haphazard tonal range are suggestive of the working-class way of life that my grandfather experienced when he came to America as an Italian immigrant. This set of values was passed down to my father and then to me in all of its eccentricities. For example, my grandfather and father built our family home, swimming pool, tree fort and decks out of the same secondary wood they built our chicken house with. My father just built a two-car garage with three sides and wood that looked like a patchwork quilt.
Technically, I could print what photographers would consider to be a perfect picture, but I would consider that to be imperfect. The seeming imperfections that you see on the physical print are similar to ways that I use the materials within the photograph. The props or devices I include in the images are made of paper, wood, tape and clay—-simply because they are all mediums that are all disposable or re-usable. I have decided that it is more important for me to be myself and approach techniques and materials the way I do rather than jeopardize the integrity of my art by conforming to existing standards.”

Tim Roda, full statement here

More of Tim’s work here

┐ Daria Tuminas └

Posted on June 23, 2011 by N

“Ivan is the elder, he is 16. Andrey, nicknamed Moon, is the younger, 14 by now. The two brothers live in a distant village in the northern part of Russia. They are not like regular teenagers, and live in a fairy tale world, yet deeply connected to nature: they go hunting and fishing, can use a joiner’s chisel, play with ghosts at abandoned places, do not want to move to a city, and love nature. Mature and childish. Naive and enigmatic. In this ongoing project I want to show the mysteriousness of the world of these brothers.

The narrative in ‘Ivan and the Moon’ is neither chronological nor event related. It does not have a strict and one-way-to-read plot. All the images are connected to each other on the level of correlated motives and on the level of hypothetical story interpretations. Each picture is supposed to provoke some inquiry about ‘What is going on?’

Moreover, the two brothers are reflections of each other. Many people might even think that they are twins. The main corpus of works contains their individual portraits, so that it is no longer clear who is who. It was also important to show that the world around the boys is itself magical and their games and fantasies are consequences of being a part of this world.

My aim is to follow the brothers through their life (I met them at a folklore expedition) and ‘document’ things that are impossible to document: the world of a boy’s fantasies, ghosts, gods, spirits of specific places, magic itself. Such things usually can not be literally depicted. As J. Szarkowski stated in his famous work ‘Mirrors and Windows’: ‘most issues of importance cannot be photographed’. My goal is to try to photograph the ‘unphotographable’ side of the matter and challenge some formal criteria of ‘classical’ documentary.”

Ivan and the Moon can be seen here

┐ Léonie Hampton └

Posted on June 19, 2011 by N

The Cariou family Live an autonomous life in Provence. Faced with the huge cost of property in their area they were fortunate to buy a small olive grove in which they have designed and built their home.  Their goal is to move as far as possible from the use of non-renewable fuel. They get enough electricity from a 140-watt solar panel to provide them with light and music throughout the year. A pump draws water from the river to a tank. In winter they use solar energy to heat the water, as the river is too cold and the current too strong for bathing.
“The state puts everything into ones hands but one must always work to sustain that materialistic way of life. Money serves to make the system function and people become slaves to it.”
They want to have as little to do with this system as possible. Yanick sustains the family with his earnings from olive, apricot and lavender farming.  They do not have neighbours.
“It is our choice to live unseen. It is not easy to live in a different way with others watching. No neighbours, no worries. Maybe one day we will have problems but we will find ways. To take the decision to live in this way is a form of combat against modern materialistic life. And we will fight for that decision.”

More of Léonie’s work here

┐ Kathleen Robbins └

Posted on June 13, 2011 by N

“In an effort to further inhabit my grandmother’s memories as a young wife, I began an autobiographical, photographic record of my experiences with her recipe journal. This ongoing project is as much a social experiment as a nostalgic experience. I dress in her clothing, prepare meals based on her hand-written recipes, serve invited guests, and perform the role of hostess. I prepare dishes based on her hand-written instruction: her recipes. Aspics, croquettes, meatloaf with pickle and egg garnish . . . And I photograph the results.

In all of my work, I am interested in trying to create larger units of meaning through editing. With The Hostess Project, the photographs and the handwritten recipes are interwoven into sequences and pairs, which illustrate a more complex experience, divided in time and space. Tiny’s recipe journal includes details about intimate family gatherings. I prepare the recipes, not to recreate their associated events. (To recreate any of these gatherings, a deceased family member’s birthday celebration for instance, seems oddly irreverent; see Figure 2.) Rather, the performance of the meal is about inhabiting certain aspects of my grandmother’s memory. The recipe book reveals something compelling about Tiny’s friendships, her marriage, my grandfather’s suicide, and her subsequent years spent alone on the farm. Lists of ingredients are scrawled on the backs of envelopes and scraps of yellowed paper. The book is stained with drips of grease and drops of cream. If my grandfather enjoyed a dish, this is noted in the margin. Recipes are revisited and journal entries revealed first, the details of dinner parties and holidays and, later, why it was too unbearably sad to prepare my grandfather’s favorite dishes. In this respect, the food becomes almost beside the point.”

excerpt from Kathleen’s article on The Hostess Project

More of Kathleen’s work here

║ Emmanuelle Antille ║

Posted on October 23, 2010 by N

║ Erik Osberg ║

Posted on October 7, 2010 by N

“I think photography and writing are very similar, in so far as their various forms and traditions are simultaneously concrete and elastic. There are people who make genre-based work: romance, sci-fi, biography, portrait, landscape, journalism, etc. And there is an audience of people who expect these genres, as well (imagine yourself working in a used bookstore being barked at about the whereabouts of How the Scots Invented the Modern World, or going to your parent’s friends house who have a framed poster of the Avedon picture of the woman and the elephants). But there are also people who have ideas and proceed to work them out using one of the numerous known forms available, or an amalgam of various forms. All this to say that contemporary cultural production may be presented in a relatively unlikely package, which is probably pretty obvious. I have ideas that I want to make public and I work them out most commonly with pictures.”

More of Erik’s work can be seen here

Nihilsentimentalgia

Tag Archives: Family