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Publication Date
1-1-2015
Keywords
artists' books, Student Artists Book Contest, second
Disciplines
Book and Paper
Student Status
Undergraduate student
Year of Graduation
2017
Major
Film/Animation/Video
Faculty / Course
Anna Strickland, Antique + Alternative Processes (Photo)
Materials + Techniques
Gum bichromate, cyanotype, van dyke prints in found photo album
Student Narrative
What happens when we try to reconstruct a family history and memory from our childhood, but only scraps and damaged photographs remain? Our Family Album is a collaged, pseudo-scrapbook and photo album of a wide array of images, both from my own family, as well as found photographs, negatives and scraps. The photos were printed through various antique and alternative processes including cyanotype, van dyke, and gum bichromate on a variety of papers, to distort these memories. Images, text, scraps, cards, printed collage/hand-made collage, negatives, and a wide variety of found materials were arranged into the intentionally distorted and "broken" scrapbook, reflecting on the loss of my own family's photographs and mementos to a house fire. I attempt to reconstruct these memories through other families' home photographs, though they remain disjointed "scraps" arranged into a found album. Through Our Family Album I hope to convey a sense of broken (but collected) remnants of family memory and home.
Recommended Citation
Renzelman, Jessica; Library, Fleet; and Collections, Special, "Our Family Album" (2015). 2nd Student Artists' Book Contest 2016. 46.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/specialcollections_bookcontest2nd2016/46