Category Archives: Assignment 5 – My Mother’s Life

Assignment, Assignment 5 - My Mother's Life

Assignment 5 – A Very Private Lady

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Assignment 5 is the final piece of work for Identity and Place and is a self-directed assignment.  Identity and Place as a unit is about thinking about how to tell stories of people, their lives and how the place they come from effects that.

While I was working on the unit my mother died and I found myself going though all her belongings. She never threw anything away. I found a massive collection of photographs from her childhood on, together with ones of her family, friends and all the places she had been to.  Most of these I had never seen before. They were collected in the traditional manner- not filed or sorted in any way but left in old print envelopes and stored in shoeboxes. Very few were labelled (and of the labelled envelopes some were clearly wrong – presumably reused). There was one early album that had a few of the people named that went up to about 1945.  Mixed in with the photographs were postcards, cuttings from newspapers, tickets, bills of sale for every house she had lived in and letters. I also found a written story of her and her family’s life up to the end of WWII that had partly been written by her and partly by one of her brothers and  a copy of a dissertation done by my cousin which told the hidden story of the treatment of Germans in America in WWII and the internment of many of them which included quotes from my mother and her family.

My mother had always been very reluctant to talk about her past life and I knew very little of it. In the final months of her life she had agreed to talk a little and we recorded what she said.

Assignment 5 is made up of some of her verbal story, 7 minutes cut from 2 hours of recording, together with a small fraction of the vast archive of pictures and memorabilia she had collected. Some of the photographs are captioned with explanations from her written story.

This piece leads directly on from the video I made for Exercise 4.5 – My Mother’s Memories. In that case I was interpreting my emotions about her words though my own images, while here I am using her own archives to tell the story more directly. It is more factual, more telling and I find it almost unbearable to watch.

Research:

Much of the research for this comes from the work done earlier in IAP and is described in Assignment 4. I have also looked at archival work and read the fascinating essay on it by Thinking about Archives by Susan Breakell. To some extent I approached this as a curator/archivist and so found the discussion I attended on this type of work by Susan Bright (see: Susan Bright Lecture) helpful for background knowledge. I have found several photographers work fed directly into my thoughts on how to present work that is essentially a memory piece and a tribute.  Murmurs by Martina Lindqvist talks about what is important at the end of life. Mother by Paul Graham (Graham, 2019) I find almost unbearably poignant. Larry Sultan in Pictures from Home (Sultan, 2017) was inspiring in its mix of found snapshots, storytelling and new photography. Deborah Orloff in Elusive Memory (Orloff, s.d.) talks about the connection between photographs and memory as do both Marianne Hirsch – Family Frames (Hirsch, 2012) and Annette Kuhn – Family secrets (Kuhn, 2002).

I have also done some research into the ways other people have used familial archives to produce pieces of work. Michael Abrams – Welcome to Springfield (Abrams, 2012)invented a whole story about a fictional town.  Daniel Meadows – Digital Stories (Meadows, s.d.)used his own memories and archive photos to produce short videos. Jim Goldberg – Gene (Goldberg, 2018) used the archive and story of an elderly man in Gene to tell about life and memories at old age, not dissimilar to the work of Julian Germain in  For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness (Germain and Snelling, 2011). Alexia Webster – Tracing Lives (Webster, 2020) and Catherine Panebianco (Panebianco, s.d.) both repurposed family images and mixed them with present day images to tell their personal stories.

Planning:

I considered two ways of showing this

  • A video
  • A photobook with short quotes from her words
  • I eventually decided on a video because I felt that actually hearing her talk about her experiences was important, as her voice echoes her emotions.
  • Following discussion and feedback from the online IAP support network I have also made a photobook (a work in progress) from the images and others to form a lasting record for our family (see: Further Reflection on Assignment 5 with Added Book – My Mother’s Story)

Practice:

  • I did a written transcript of all the recordings, then ordered them in time and tried to pick out the most important pieces. This was difficult and the recording could have easily lasted 20 minutes or more to give the details.
  • The level of her voice varies, partly I think due to how tired she was at any given moment, but also to how difficult she was finding telling some parts of the story.
  • I then went through all her collected memorabilia and found the photographs and cuttings that were relevant to this time period.
  • I made a version on a black background and on a white one. I eventually chose the black as it seemed to be clearer and fit the subject matter better.
  • The video was uploaded to Vimeo
  • Following feedback from my tutor I added a slightly more personal touch at the beginning and end of the original video.

Video:

Learning Points:

  • Looking though archives takes a long time, and you need to be ruthless about choosing images/memorabilia to use
  • This might have been a better project to do when I had achieved some emotional distance
  • It is very difficult to decide what is of more general interest against specific family interest
  • Small and old snapshots are hard to enlarge successfully as every mark shows
    • But – are the marks actually part of the story?
  • I need to start to archive (note use of the noun archive as a verb) my own work more carefully with more tags and names attached to people
  • Feedback from both peers and tutor really helps to make a more coherent piece of work.

Summary:

This was a difficult piece of work to do and I am not convinced I have done it justice. I may yet rework it in the future. When reading the latest aperture I came across this quote ‘The archive is one of the spaces where that exchange takes place, where the living go to encounter the dead. It’s a strange business, summoning ghosts. For the most part the work is repetitive, an orderly, laborious process of logging and transcribing. But every once in a while, something happens. You look down, and beneath the surface someone looks back’ (Laing, 2020).

References:

Abrams, M. (2012) Welcome to Springfield. Washington, D.C.: Loosestrife Editions.

Germain, J. and Snelling, C. (2011) For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness: portrait of an elderly gentleman. (Second edition) London: Mack.

Goldberg (2018) Jim Goldberg’s New Book is a Tender Portrait of Old Age • Magnum Photos. At: https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/jim-goldberg-gene/ (Accessed 09/09/2020).

Graham, P. (2019) Mother. London: MACK.

Hirsch, M. (2012) Family frames: photography, narrative, and postmemory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.

Kuhn, A. (2002) Family secrets: acts of memory and imagination. (New ed) London; New York: Verso.

Laing, O. (2020) ‘A Fold in Time’ In: aperture 239 p.95

Meadows, D. (s.d.) Digital Stories on Vimeo. At: https://vimeo.com/showcase/5268983 (Accessed 10/09/2020).

Orloff, D. (s.d.) Deborah Orloff. At: http://deborahorloff.com/ (Accessed 10/08/2020).

Panebianco, C. (s.d.) catherine panebianco. At: http://www.catherinepanebianco.com (Accessed 09/09/2020).

Sultan, L. (ed.) (2017) Pictures from home – Larry Sultan. London: Mack.

Webster, A. (2020) ‘Tracing lives: a visual response to coronavirus’ In: The Guardian 26/06/2020 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jun/26/tracing-lives-visual-response-to-coronavirus (Accessed 30/08/2020).

Assignment, Assignment 5 - My Mother's Life, Reflection on A5

Response to Tutor Feedback for Assignment 5

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I had a helpful hangout with my tutor about the work for assignment 5.

He was happy with my research and input into the exercises.

We spent most of the time discussing assignment 5. His main comment / criticism was that I had not explained why I had made the video, what precipitated making it and how I felt about it.  He, like me, thought it was a little long but agreed that this was probably unavoidable. He suggested that I alter the beginning and the end of the video to to give a more personal connection to it, possibly including images of the piles of photos that I was faced with! I am working on this at present. I also need to think of a title.

My tutor also suggested that I should look at references to use of archives within the work up of the video. He gave me 3 helpful references which I have looked at; Michael Abrams – Welcome to Springfield,  Daniel Meadows – Digital Stories and Jim Goldberg – Gene. I have managed to find 2 other photographers that have used family archives in their work; Alexia Webster – Tracing Lives and  Catherine Panebianco .

We then discussed the assessment process and he gave advice about keeping everything concise and making a clear reflection/ artists statement.

With thanks to Chris for his helpful input over the extended time of IAP.

Assignment 5 - My Mother's Life

Further Reflection on Assignment 5 with Added Book – My Mother’s Story

3 Comments

Following completion of my first run through of assignment 5 I put it up for comments in the IAP group. Most were positive however there were some suggestions:

  • “I found myself rather confused in the middle. This doesn’t reflect anyway on the presentation which I found very moving so maybe this isn’t the right place. However, what was lacking for me were dates…. Do the facts matter for it as a piece of art? They mattered to me because I felt the confusion distracted me away from the flow.”
    • Added dates (where I know them) to the images.  Sometimes these were inevitably my best estimate – partly because she gave different years for the same event on different retellings.
      • Comment back – “Completely different! For me, a hundred times better as it’s completely clear”
    • “I don’t know how you’re fixed for time, inclination etc but adding a book (as has been suggested) would, in my view, be a real complement to the work. There’s a benefit to doing this that hasn’t been mentioned … that of longevity. The work as it stands – ie in electronic format – wouldn’t necessarily survive as a family heirloom, (assuming you’d like it to be one) and whilst not guaranteed, a book might. Whether or not this extra step would translate into marks I’ve no idea … but it might in terms of presentation and show consideration of an audience beyond the academic?”
      • Made a book out of the video, with some extra images and a little more text culled from my mother’s recorded words. For some of the pages I changed the image as I have had yet another sort through her archives and bits and pieces and found a better image or a more interesting keepsake. I may well change these in the video. The book, at present remains in a pdf format so it can be seen online. If the OCA was taking non-digital items, I would make it up. I am considering whether to make it a hand produced copy, so only one (or a very limited-edition number) or made via blurb or similar so I can send copies to all my family.
    • “I guess my only niggle is that I really wanted to study the letters and forms to read the language, but they vanished too quickly! In an ideal world, if this could be some sort of slide show that the user could be in control of moving forward when ready, that would solve the problem.”
      • Agreed that this is an issue. It would be fixed in a slideshow – but difficult to do in a video without adding in long pauses. Hopefully  dealt with this by making a book where you can study the forms and letters for as long as you like.

Overall, the feedback was very helpful, both in terms of suggestions for taking the project forward and in improving my confidence about it. I remain concerned about the length of the video (and even more so of the book). It is impossible to tell the story without it being long – however the length does fall outside the project brief. There were some comments about the length  – “I certainly don’t think the video is too long, it held my attention throughout, and by the end I felt as though I had accompanied your mother on her journey.”

The book – in pdf format – so you have to imagine the pages side by side. The words on the left page and the matching picture on the right side. To see it in a larger format the pdf can be downloaded. This embedded pdf works on a desktop but does not work on tablets!

Click to access mothers-story-cover.pdf

Cover for book

Click to access mothers-story.pdf

My Mother’s Story

For those who are using iPads, or want to download directly, here is a link

Cover of book:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1APITrt24-ugXUJgxqA1dENq6MwbkPkYZ/view?usp=sharing

Main Story:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o-2_M_Lt6YL7JYLHsZLgF_Viqmmj_hNQ/view?usp=sharing

Assignment 5 - My Mother's Life, Reflection on A5

Initial Reflection on Assignment 5

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Assessment Criteria

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills:

  • The technical skills here were the practical ones of making the video.
    • I still struggle with this; I find getting the volume of the tape even very difficult
    • I have, however, learnt how to clean up unwanted background noise
  • Visually – this assignment was about picking images and memorabilia from an extensive and unsorted archive and making sense of them
  • I had to work out the best way to show the images, considering the use of black versus white backgrounds, text font, placement of text
    • I also considered framing each image within the slide to give more consistency but decided against it as an unnecessary complication that did not improve clarity

Quality of outcome:

  • I am generally content with the final video but –
    • It is probably too long; it does go over the recommended number of images for the brief. The only way to deal with this would to be to cut chunks out of the story

Demonstration of creativity:

  • The idea was creative – but the work ended up being very factual, really a documentary piece
  • There was a large emotional load when listening to the recording repeatedly
  • This video links directly with the earlier one from exercise 4.5

Context:

  • The assignment was based on the work done in part 4 and 5
  • The project was based on a personal event, described in the information.
  • The work sits within the framework of memory and families and I have done reading around this (referenced in the research).
Assignment 5 - My Mother's Life

Assignment 5

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Assignment 5 is the final piece of work for Identity and Place and is a self-directed assignment.  Identity and Place as a unit is about thinking about how to tell stories of people, their lives and how the place they come from effects that.

While I was working on the unit my mother died and I found myself going though all her belongings. She never threw anything away. I found a massive collection of photographs from her childhood on, together with ones of her family, friends and all the places she had been to.  Most of these I had never seen before. They were collected in the traditional manner- not filed or sorted in any way but left in old print envelopes and stored in shoeboxes. Very few were labelled (and of the labelled envelopes some were clearly wrong – presumably reused). There was one early album that had a few of the people named that went up to about 1945.  Mixed in with the photographs were postcards, cuttings from newspapers, tickets, bills of sale for every house she had lived in and letters. I also found a written story of her and her family’s life up to the end of WWII that had partly been written by her and partly by one of her brothers and  a copy of a dissertation done by my cousin which told the hidden story of the treatment of Germans in America in WWII and the internment of many of them which included quotes from my mother and her family.

My mother had always been very reluctant to talk about her past life and I knew very little of it. In the final months of her life she had agreed to talk a little and we recorded what she said.

Assignment 5 is made up of some of her verbal story, 7 minutes cut from 2 hours of recording, together with a small fraction of the vast archive of pictures and memorabilia she had collected. Some of the photographs are captioned with explanations from her written story.

This piece leads directly on from the video I made for exercise 4.5. In that case I was interpreting my emotions about her words though my own images, while here I am using her own archives to tell the story more directly. It is more factual, more telling and I find it almost unbearable to watch.

Research:

Much of the research for this comes from the work done earlier in IAP and is described in Assignment 4. I have also looked at archival work and read the fascinating essay on it  Thinking about Archives by Susan Breakell. To some extent I approached this as a curator/archivist and so found the discussion I attended on this type of work – Susan Bright Lecture helpful for background knowledge. An essay I read much earlier in IAP Bates – The Memory of Photography discusses the complex link between memory and photography and also the changing role of photography to record family events. I have found several photographers work fed directly into my thoughts on how to present work that it essentially a memory piece and a tribute.  Murmurs by Martina Lindqvist talks about what is important at the end of life. Mother by Paul Graham (Graham, 2019) I find  impossibly poignant. Larry Sultan in Pictures from Home (Sultan, 2017) was inspiring in its mix of found snapshots, storytelling and new photography. Deborah Orloff, in Elusive Memory (Orloff, s.d.) talks about the connection between photographs and memory as do both Marianne Hirsch – Family Frames (Hirsch, 2012) and Annette Kuhn – Family secrets (Kuhn, 2002).

Planning:

I considered two ways of showing this

  • A video
  • A photobook with short quotes from her words
  • I eventually decided on a video because I felt that actually hearing her talk about her experiences was important, as her voice echoes her emotions.

Practice:

  • I did a written transcript of all the recordings, then ordered them in time and tried to pick out the most important pieces. This was difficult and the recording could have easily lasted 20 minutes or more to give the details.
  • The level of her voice varies, partly I think due to how tired she was at any given moment, but also to how difficult she was finding telling some parts of the story.
  • I then went through all her collected memorabilia and found the photographs and cuttings that were relevant to this time period.
  • The images were then attached to the relevant piece of the story and captioned when it made it clearer.
  • I made a version on a black background and on a white one. I eventually chose the black as it seemed to be clearer and fit the subject matter better.
  • The video was uploaded to Vimeo

Video:

Learning Points:

  • Looking though archives takes a long time, and you need to be ruthless about choosing images/memorabilia to use
  • This might have been a better project to do when I had achieved some emotional distance
  • It is very difficult to decide what is of more general interest against specific family interest
  • Small and old snapshots are to hard to enlarge successfully as every mark shows
    • But – are the marks actually part of the story?
  • I need to start to archive (note use of the noun archive as a verb) my own work more carefully with more tags and names attached to people

References:

Graham, P. (2019) Mother. London: MACK.

Hirsch, M. (2012) Family Frames: photography, narrative, and postmemory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.

Kuhn, A. (2002) Family Secrets: acts of memory and imagination. (New ed) London; New York: Verso.

Orloff, D. (s.d.) Deborah Orloff. At: http://deborahorloff.com/ (Accessed 10/08/2020).

Sultan, L. (ed.) (2017) Pictures from Home – Larry Sultan. London: Mack.