Theatre of the self

As I looked through the few images that were available to me from the family photographs in my possession, it occurred to me that many of us look for several things in albums: to remember, to show (to ourselves or to others), to look for meaning and clues to our own identity and significance.

This last item—the search for meaning—seems to be particularly important, given the number of people who pay strangers to pick through their DNA samples to help support personal narratives… or to create new ones (“so that’s why I like seafood—I’m 3% Viking!”).

However much we may pretend that we are good postmodern people and have done away with grand narratives, we really want to know where we come from and what our lives “mean.” For some, family albums are a tool for for doing just that: if I can see those who went before me, I can not only spot a familiar jawline or hair colour, but might be able to identify the source of internal traits like personality, psychology or preferences.

For me, this is where the interplay of “nature versus nurture” becomes important. I might be able to recognize cheek bones in a creased photograph of my great-grandparents and their children (including my grandfather as a toddler), but we have lived different lives, with vastly different expectations, in different times, on different continents. There might be something in our shared nature to enlighten me, but it would involve a lot of projection for one photograph to overcome the impacts of nurture.

I was struck by Soomin Ham’s Portraits and Windows portfolio (Soomin Ham, s.d.) which I came across recently in a magazine article (Montrone, 2021). The images, combined black and white photographs of different generations of the artist’s family, portray well the shadowy influences and presences of those who have gone before. They are still held in memory, but their outlines are less distinct with each passing year and generation.

My ancestors, too, stand like a faded negative behind the arc of my own life, from baby, to young graduate, to retired man. It probably means something, but it’s hard to know exactly what—perhaps it means just as much as I want it to.

Can it be that different for anyone else?

References

Montrone, Donatella (2021) ‘Living Memory’ In: Black+White Photography (255) pp.8–16.

Soomin Ham (s.d.) At: https://www.soominham.com (Accessed 23/10/2021).

Family albums and the digital self

In the pre-digital era, the family album was often something precious because it represented a curated record of a family’s history. When having one’s picture taken was still relatively rare, any photograph of a relative had a certain importance and would likely be kept. As more people had access to cameras and photographs, the album was gradually democratized and a greater number of images were kept, although often in a very selective way. One or two members of a family were likely the “keepers” of the album and decide which processed prints would be kept—not so much for aesthetic reasons, but because they showed person(s) X in location Y. These images were memory aids and it has often struck me how similar family albums look within a certain period, partially because of the technology involved (cameras, film, paper, degradation of images over time) but also because of a desire to document similar people, places and things/styles in similar ways. And as transparency films became popular, the family album could be supplemented or replaced by the slide show.

Although the album was a memory aid, I remember noticing that each picture had a story and how the story could evolve at each retelling. Some parts of the narrative would be suggested by the image itself, while other parts of the story would take on a different flavour depending upon the state of the relationships with the people or places depicted. And some images might disappear entirely, removed from the album if they were no longer part of the approved story. Divorce, in particular, had a devastating effect both on families and in the way they were represented in pictures.

Even if the images seemed to fix particular people, times and places, I noticed more than once that memories could be faulty. With each viewing of the album, family members remembered the image itself as well as the event that it depicted. In some cases, the memory of the image became more “real,” to the point where an aunt of mine had to be reminded that she had not been born when a particular picture was taken, despite her “memory” of the event. The retelling became an important part of the oral history around the artefact, and people naturally wanted to be part of the bigger story.

Digital technology—especially the ever-available mobile phone—has changed the way we tell and remember those stories. In fact, we now “consume” images in volume. We can create photographs with such a low incremental cost that we produce hundreds and thousands of them as ephemera with little expectation of them constituting a “family album.” The closest contemporary analogue to an album might be a feed of photographs on a social media site. And it is a strange side-effect of the digital age that, as image-making technology has improved, the quantity of images produced has increased while their quality seems to have declined. We do not value what is most widely available.

I realise as I write this that I rarely sit with my own family to look at our pictures, although this was a common enough activity when I was young—especially when relatives were visiting and there was a need to make family connections, renew memories and show how everyone had changed. I take it for granted that my wider family will see what I post on Facebook and Instagram and do not give much thought to it constituting an “album.” It may be that my experience is unique, but I doubt it.

Given the role that images have played in supporting family and personal narratives for more than a century, I wonder what the decline of the family album means for an understanding of the family and the self. We still care about “where we come from,” but perhaps more of it is based on psychological concepts of the self and “science” (if the numbers of people submitting DNA samples is anything to go by). Genealogical records may also help us to build a family album from administrative data and we are perhaps freer to construct an idea of the self from our interpretation of the nuggets we like (“No wonder I’m the way I am: I’m 3% Viking and I may be descended from the 23rd cousin of King Alfred!”).

Has the digital “family album” left us more adrift in a sea of data that we can read as we will? Does it undermine our ability to place ourselves in a coherent narrative—especially one that we might share with others—or is it just different? I don’t know.

Àbadakone | Continuous Fire | Feu continuel

Àbadakone (Algonquin for “continuous fire”) is the second exhibition “in the National Gallery of Canada’s series of presentations of contemporary international Indigenous art, features works by more than 70 artists identifying with almost 40 Indigenous Nations, ethnicities and tribal affiliations from 16 countries, including Canada.”

According to the National Gallery, “the title Àbadakone was provided by the Elders Language Committee of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. They felt that its connotation of a fire within each artist that continues to burn would be an appropriate title for the second presentation of this ongoing series of exhibitions showcasing Indigenous art from around the world.”

Indigenous art and culture is drawing a lot of attention in Canada and other countries dealing with the history and ongoing impacts of colonization of the “New World” by European powers.

I found the exhibit exciting as it opens up a broad range of discussions that are important not only for Indigenous people, but for anyone who has an interest in place, identity, the construction and evolution of culture, and the importance of narrative for creating and bearing meaning. The introduction at the entry to the exhibit indicates that the broad theme behind its curation is one of “Relatedness, Continuity and Activation.” In brief, this refers to the interconnection of all things, the links across time and generations, and “how an artist animates a space, an object, or an idea through performance, video or viewer engagement.”

(All images taken on my cellphone.)

For me, there were several threads that ran through the exhibit, particularly the challenges of:

  • colonization;

  • industrialization;

  • globalization;

  • environmental degradation;

  • technology;

  • migration; and

  • tradition.

Without taking anything away from the specific issues and questions facing the Indigenous artists who created these works, it seems to me that many of the challenges are also faced by non-Indigenous people. As a result of the challenges I’ve listed above, very few of us can simply take for granted the place where we stand, the identities we have inherited, the histories that have shaped us or the futures that lie before us. In a time of profound uncertainties, it will be important to draw selectively on our knowledge of the past, on our best understanding of our times and on the most promising paths forward. It is fascinating to see that while Postmodernism rejected meta-narratives, we continue to need overarching stories to interpret the past, create meaning in the present and have hope for the future.