a marriage
2020
This project was an observation of a partnership I know well. My understanding of marriage has been entirely based on the marriage I saw the most often, my parents. I started taking photos of my family to identify what my role was in a group so large, but soon my focus stuck on my parents because I realized I was learning more and more about their relationship through the images.
Marriage or partnership is vastly different in each couple and/or family, at many different stages of time. There are things that connect and separate in all marriages, but they manifest in different ways. What connects my parents? What separates them? Framing became a huge component of this project to delve deeper into both the physical and the emotional separations I was discovering through the images.
a marriage offers a set of images embodies the essence of their relationship at its core.
a marriage, the book
a marriage is a physical representation of my parent’s 41-year relationship. This hand-bound photo book - part artist book and part family cookbook - incorporates direct quotes from the subjects, hand-written family recipes, and documentary images of my parents' lives. The introductory text reveals a narrative arc between my mother and father as they reflect on their years together. The hand-written content included will offer recipes to draw a parallel between the act of cooking and the constant effort two people put into a marriage to make it successful. The images frame their relationship with what physically separates them and where life brings them back together. The creation of this limited-edition physical object is a dedication to the strength and devotion of the two souls that brought me into this world.
