My intention is to engage the past history of the photo album by exploring its attraction to summon up nostalgia. I aim to critique the dominant ideology of the family album, present an alternative album that is both overtly queer and intensely personal.
When she had access to a camera she made these images Left a portrait of me and right an image she made she calls I love horses.
I hope to provoke a dialogue on disidentifying with the dominant ideology as to what constitutes a family and challenge what is acceptable imagery that makes up the family album with a public performance of an ethics of the self, through my image making. By an ‘ethics of the self’ I mean nourishing and sustaining a self within civil society as Foucault describes in The Care of the self.
Long distance relationship with her father, and the awkwardness that sometimes comes when you try to reconnect in these small gaps in time.
Images like these from being in the hospital are also part of this alternative album
Images like this our re-performed after they have occurred.
By Mis-performing the archtype of Motherhood, in this society, I am breaking with conventions of the past and reinserting motherhood from a more realistic perspective.
Since I am a mother and a lesbian, I have tried to deconstruct my gaze and found the more I read about it, and tried to differentiate them, the more absurd the difference became. I am who I am. I make images based on how I feel and how I see the women in my life.
Collaberating with my immediate family, together we are creating a visual dialogue of family through a process of collective editing, while leaving a trail of collective memory that is less stereotypical and in my opinion more interesting than my mother's family album.Finally, I can see this alternative album expanding beyond our immediate family and envision it expanding to include a more collective vision of the queer family.
![Alternative Album ,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/alternativealbum-12581811894088-phpapp02/85/Alternative-Album-1-320.jpg)
![Do what you know ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)