Since my parents’ estrangement, four years ago, my perspective shifted into a realm of bitter contemplation, analysis, and critique. Their separation after 25 years of marriage has unsettled not only the foundation of our household, but with divorce procedures just underway, I’m noticing that the effects of this event are altering everything: I look at places, people, and (most significantly) objects with different eyes, questioning their purpose, truth, and actuality. This shift accounts for the way I photograph my subjects, taking them out of their context, and into a separate environment for singular speculation. Using installation, edited home videos, and a photographic book, childhood memories are re-created and transformed into tangible layers of self-reflection.
These layers are made physical through constructed images, edited home video footage, and an installation of a room in my childhood home. Through the use of furniture, objects, wallpaper, carpeting, lighting, and scent, the room transports viewers into the past, mine and perhaps theirs. As the old TV flickers between repeating birthday parties, analog static, and cigarette smokers, the audience may recall moments from their own family history, gathered around the giant console TV set, just as it appears in the fabricated room. The video serves as a connector between past and present, personal and universal connection, and also the installation room and photographs. As actions are repeating on screen from a past era, scents, objects, and the book of photographs serve to bring the audience back into present day. The elements that make up the assemblage of my childhood room mimic the way that memories are recalled, questioned, forgotten, confused, and replayed.