we are family
‘She has her mother’s eyes. They have the Banks’ forehead. Your smile is just like your grandmother.’
How we look is one way in which we are connected as family and something that photography can reveal. Labels like ‘niece’, ‘sister-in-law’, ‘daughter’, describing our relationship to a family member, is another.
we are family started out as a desire to study family resemblance and create a visual family tree. I began to photograph first my nuclear family and then extended and blended family in my garden in front of a sheet of vinyl nailed to the fence.
I am still interested in physical family resemblance but as I photograph I realise that my family, like all families, is not just bound by blood ties, or even legal ones. Family is who you grow with, love, support, and sustain. It can be created through friendship, community, or shared culture. It can be chosen or inherited.
we are family is an ongoing series, which will grow to include more relations and will reflect the changing face of my family through birth, death, divorce, new relationships and new communities.
