"Projections of the Past": Revived Family Photo Album

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week we are publishing the project "Projections and Resemblances" by American Leah Miriam Cooper about trying to stretch the thread into the past and feel a connection with relatives who are not always close. The artist, who always felt like a stranger among her relatives, spread the family archive, in order to then project the portraits of the ancestors onto the walls of her apartment and herself.

↑ September 29, 1943, Lincoln, Nebraska. I look displeased here, but I decided that you would still want to see where we live. Our address: 26 27 “R” St "

I grew up in Rhode Island, where everyone I knew had very close-knit families and close relationships with relatives. The older I got, the more clearly I understood that everything was different in my family. For a long time I did not worry about this and accepted things as they are. Everything changed at the university: I wrote a diploma, talked a lot with people and realized that I envy those who maintain relationships with relatives. The project "Projections and Resemblances" is my attempt to establish close ties with my relatives and understand what it is like to have a loved one in the family.

I studied the literature on the subject and stumbled upon the theory of the famous American psychotherapist Murray Bowen. He argues that dissociation in the family and alienation from relatives often results in the loss of communication between generations, provoking anxiety and depression. According to the same theory of Bowen, if the younger generation decides to rectify the situation - to learn more about ancestors and understand their motives, then it can achieve an effect no worse than from family therapy. This is what I did: I tried to patch the gaps in the family tree, and in the end I learned a lot about myself and my background. But the main thing - finally felt like a part of the family and its history.

The concept of this project - to get to know your ancestors - has always been the same, but the visual ways of its reflection changed in the course of work. I started with projections, then I decided to add static images to them: I projected images onto walls and other flat surfaces and took pictures of the result. At some point, going through the archives, I found staged portraits of relatives taken in a photo studio, and, of course, I wanted to use them. My early works were self-portraits, so the images of my relatives found continued this line of my work perfectly. Later, I started projecting the images of ancestors onto myself and fixed the result on the photo, but gradually it became obvious that it was imperative to make this video.

The idea of projecting photos of my relatives onto my face was born when I looked at pictures of young parents. I realized that I had no idea what they were at my age. Then I projected my mother's photo onto myself and for the first time realized how similar she was to her. I always thought that I looked different than all the other relatives, and because of this I felt like a stranger in my own family. It was during the filming that I finally felt the connection with my relatives.

The "Projections and Resemblances" featured photos of my relatives from the 1920s to the late 1970s. I don’t know the exact dates, unfortunately. The pictures show my grandmothers, as well as my aunt and mother - in the photo they are still teenagers. All of them, with the exception of my mother, I remember very vaguely. The remaining relatives have always lived more than a thousand kilometers away from us. My mother’s grandmother died when I was very young. Dad's mom - Hannah (you can see her in three photos: "Sleeping", "In my bedroom" and "September 29, 1943, Lincoln, Nebraska") - she was sick all the time, so nothing besides this I was talking about I remember. Best of all, I remembered my great-grandmother, Ellen, with whom I spoke as a teenager, and whose story I want to learn more about in the future.

↑ Ellen in the living room, 1945