Family Ties: Reframing Memory
An exhibition and conference will explore how memories are created and passed on
The family photo album rarely shows the whole story of our family's history and memories. A group exhibition (3 – 25 July 2014) and associated conference (10-11 July 2014) at Birkbeck will explore how memory and imagination intermingle in the re-telling of family histories.
The ‘Family Ties: Reframing Memory’ exhibition, to be held in Birkbeck’s Peltz Gallery from 3-25 July (open Monday-Friday from 10am – 7pm) will include works by members of the Family Ties Network.
Artists Suze Adams, Nicky Bird, Jacqueline Butler, Rosy Martin, Lizzie Thynne and Sally Waterman will reflect on the borders of fact and fiction, revisit ancestral homelands and evoke haunting or traumatic moments of their familial pasts through photography, video and sound.
Participating artist, Lizzie Thynne said “Among other things, the show explores how our identities are forged through our families, as well as how we create our own lives beyond them, including through art.”
Events
Saturday 5th July, 2:00pm, Peltz Gallery
Artist talk in gallery and short film screening in Birkbeck Cinema, featuring work by Suze Adams, Rosy Martin and Sally Waterman. This rolling 35-minute programme will feature work that deals with key themes such as ancestral connections to place, the parental home, mother-daughter relationships, the family album and mourning and loss.
Friday 25th July, 6:30pm, Birkbeck Cinema
Lizzie Thynne, On the Border film screening and Q&A
A daughter’s exploration of her Finnish family’s history, prompted by the letters, objects and photographs left in her mother’s apartment.
Picturing the Family: Media, Narrative, Memory conference
The conference, to be held on 10-11 July, will consider the conventions of the family picture and how these reflect changing conceptions of the family, especially when created in through other media such as museum exhibitions, social media, literature and film.
- Read a blog post about the family and memory transmission.
[Photo credit: Rosy Martin, 'In situ']