Increasingly, the notion of a single, organic global family is becoming more widely held. How does one define their more immediate family in a world where relationships know no physical, distance or technological boundaries; where the very construct of family no longer consists of simply blood-relations?
A FAMILY FEAST is a series of Polaroid portraits celebrating instantaneous, unpredictable and developing relationships, explored within the context of this inclusive and organic family. Spanning 10 months from mid 2008 to early 2009, one such ‘immediate family’ was catalogued throughout Eastern Australia in 87 Polaroid portraits. All of the subjects were interconnected and related through loose and tight relationships; blood-relationships, bleeding-relationships and beginning relationships. These portraits constitute the first stage of the work.
The second stage involves visiting and feasting with all the subjects over meals through their connections. During these meals the subjects will add a lock of their own hair to their portrait, thus engaging the metaphor of a family feast; where those who sit down to partake of family also contribute themselves through relationship.
The medium of Polaroid was chosen as the film and its developing are often instantaneous, unpredictable and with irreversible effects similar to that of unpredictable familial relationships and the instantaneous-with-irreversible effects of who becomes, and who is your family. The entire work is framed in a variety of antique, second-hand and other assorted frames.
“A Family Feast” celebrates family in the deeper and often more valuable dimension that it is.
The entire work as a whole is now on sale, however, only to those in the portraits.
The work is held in two professionaly made albums of felt and card.
Brown & burgundy.
Brown & burgundy.
