This photo-based exhibition, featuring the work of contemporary artist Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, looks at the family photograph in a new way. Viewed by the artist as an object filled with emotional and psychological energy, the family photograph plays an evocative role in shaping our identities and memories.
What is a family photo? How do they work to shape our memories? What can they really tell us about history? With a uniquely creative approach, Matthew not only studies the connection between the past and present, but also addresses the silences and absences in family photos; where histories do not get preserved, and memory and fabricated histories become blurred.
Born in England, raised in India, and now based in the United States, Matthew’s dynamic and thought-provoking work pulls from her experience of living between three cultures. This exhibit brings together six bodies of work from 1996 to 2015 and consists of still and moving imagery. By playing with technique, Matthew’s work is also an exploration of the medium of photography itself. The title of the exhibit refers to both the multiple generations within a family and the multiple generations of a photographic print.
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew is Professor of Art (Photography) at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island.