Since the first opening reception on Oct 3rd, “Turning Strangers into Family”, Digital Diaspora Family Reunion‘s interactive exhibition has been continuing with many family photographic archives and their amazing stories.
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This special exhibition coincides with an interdisciplinary course that Thomas Allen Harris is teaching this semester in the Yale School of Art entitled “Strategies of Visual Memoir in Art Practice”, a studio-based class that explores the use of archives in constructing real and fictive narratives across a variety of disciplines.
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Students in Harris’ course are taking turns to co-curate portions of the exhibit working together with the Yale and New Haven communities. Every two weeks, another student in Harris’ class will remix the exhibition using photos, text and objects.
Check out below to see the students’ work they have done so far with their textual descriptions of the exhibit!
Caroline Hart : “My remix of Thomas Allen Harris’ Digital Diaspora Family Reunion attempts to conceive a postmodern visual narrative.
In a series of six pieces, I have inserted myself via collage into prints of my deceased grandmother. Through the process of collage, I explore how we insert ourselves and our biases into the narratives of those who cannot speak for themselves.
What pieces of a narrative do we omit, intentionally or otherwise, through the act of remembrance? How does a remembered narrative position itself against the truth?”
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Aaron Peirano Garrison : “Aaron is directing and producing “Questions of Justice”, his first feature length documentary following the story of New Haven Police Officer Jeffrey Fletcher and his traveling exhibition of artifacts related to African American history. Participating in “Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, Turning Strangers into Family” is an opportunity for Aaron to express the calling he feels to connect people to narratives that inspire change. Aaron’s installation captures images of his daughter Eden and of Jeffrey’s daughter Victoria placing them within the exhibition to illustrate the kinship he feels with Jeffrey.”
“Though the two girls have never met, they are imagined here as family, discovering this installment of the DDFR exhibit together and in turn becoming a part of that story. Captured both in likeness and in conversation, the two text back and forth playfully experiencing the space together. Aaron reflects on the similarities in his own diasporic migration South as a child and encourages you to imagine these girls as kin: as you happen upon their images and read their texts may you find yourself enveloped in this ever expanding family archive.”
If you would like to submit a photo and story for inclusion in the show, please email it to: 1World1Family.me@gmail.com. If you are in the area or passing through, please don’t want to miss the chance to see this exhibition as it unfolds in the Gallery at the Whitney, 53 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06520-8298 t (203) 432-0670
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To see more photos from the exhibition, click here.
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