Family Ties: Reframing Memory

How might we read memory in relation to the family, and how might we enact these memories through art practice? This group exhibition addresses the representation of family memory through the photographic, video and sound works of six artists. Family Ties: Reframing Memory explores the bittersweet aspects of reflective nostalgia, yet also considers the conflicts and contradictions inherent in acts of remembering.
Suze Adams navigates the borders of fact and fiction in an exploratory retracing of her maternal ancestors on the Isle of Mull. Nicky Bird draws on family albums belonging to others to illuminate personal, political memories connected to place. Jacqueline Butler’s poetic approach alludes to sensory memories prompted by public photographic collections and her personal archive. Rosy Martin re-enacts a lost past as she embodies both of her parents in their family home, as well as using projections to evoke a sense of haunting. Lizzie Thynne’s sound-led work examines the inter-subjectivity of life histories, highlighting the link between memories of childhood and feminist politics. Sally Waterman employs literary adaptation as a mechanism for self-portraiture, recalling traumatic memories of family conflict through T.S Eliot’s poem ‘The Waste Land’.

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.