Sharon Garrett

In this photographic work I have delved into the workings of family memory and the oral history passed down with the family photographs we inherit. The emotional attachment we feel towards these people’s faces within our collections of pictures are often attached to a story or emotion, these emotions are more important to us that the picture itself or the ‘perfection ‘ of the shot itself.

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These stories may or may not be true and are coloured by the person who tells the story, slanted by the emotions they felt at the time and the way they saw it.

We rely on these histories to find our place in the family and connect us to the past as well as keeping those who have gone an immortality.  These stories are connecting us to the past and as custodians of the images to give them and us  future immortality.

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These stories depending on the era and the social constraints of the time have missing family members undocumented because of a slight or a ‘crime’ of birth or circumstance will not be included in any album. Parentage, disability or adoption will be covered up and a new history  constructed to exclude them  is told which in time becomes  the truth to the next generation because it is all we know,  and this we pass on to our children as fact.

 

This work is my way of documenting this mistruth in my own family Album and through this work I tell my own story make it my history  because I say  Elvis is My Grandfather.

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