In 2015, while visiting Berlin, I stumbled upon a discarded vernacular German family photo album. As I turned each page, I saw the life of a child unfold, 27 days old, 47 days old, 80 days old, ending at 365 days. I then looked at the date and it occurred to me that this was at the dawn of the Second World War. This body of work is a collaboration between me and my son and two strangers, a mother and a child and explores the interplay between shared global history and maternal identity. I have carefully re-enacted each picture with my son since his birth, set within the same time frame outlined in the album, from 27 days old to a year. My recreations are over-layed with the original source material from 1938, collapsing space, time and memory into one photograph. The pixels merge with the grain, in the way I merge with this stranger, our developmental milestones and fears become one. By collapsing the historical photograph with my staged re-enactment I create a new narrative in which our shared identity at a time of uncertainty become united.
365 Days: 1938/2017
Installation View, 365 Days, KEWENIG Gallerie, Berlin, 2021
Installation View Detail, 365 Days, KEWENIG Gallerie, Berlin, 2021
27 Days
40 Days
47 Days
48 Days
50 Days
80 Days
108 Days
108 Days
115 Days
121 Days
124 Days
126 Days
142 Days
163 Days
201 Days
203 Days
210 Days
217 Days
223 Days
259 Days
300 Days
320 Days
361 Days
365 Days