Counterfactual family portrait

This study of artifacts forces us to view what once was. These people and faces of early 20th century portrait photography are concrete, they are, or at least they once were. Their images illustrate facts of a time, in a space that has continually adapted and transformed into what we experience today, thrust into the memories of our ancestors, these people are no longer for the present being to see, they have aged or even died.

Importantly this analysis should be viewed as a counterfactual observation, from what has been, compared to what is, and the 100 years in-between. A great deal can be taken from this gap ‘in-between’ and it is from this space we must move forward, realizing the constraints and limitations put in place by the persons that occupied our pasts, ultimately shaping our future.

Through digital mapping systems and technologies, the initial objective analogue photographs are deconstructed, from black and white family portraiture, to a linear maze of outlines, constructing forms of textural agitation leaving an overwhelming sense of fluidity and interconnectedness.