Have You Met My Sister Brigid?

Author

Sofia de Guzman, Bard CollegeFollow

Date of Submission

Spring 2011

Academic Program

Photography

Advisor

John Pilson

Abstract/Artist's Statement

I wanted to make a family album, to rewrite my own history, but I forgot that nothing really happens on a day-to-day basis. The idleness of a comfortable life never imposed upon me an urge to recreate momentous occasions worth recording. Instead, I recorded the reality. This is a story about a family. A big family that comes from little money but lives in places of old money. Scattered as they are regionally, they are connected by an understanding of place. Identity and location are tied together. While this project is not to any extent autobiographical, it takes the form of a personal diary in many ways. Diaries are accounts of days past, minor excitements, stillness accumulated. It is important to me that the subjects of this project are not photographed by chance; they are my relatives. I share an intimacy with these people and yet I remain distanced. The moments I chose to capture are the static ones, punctuated by interactions, tasks and weather. These people are coping with the everyday; they exist in activities of leisure and Sunday chores. I am compelled by the suburbs in which I grew up. Through these photographs, I realize that there is something unsettling about home. There is an inherent strangeness in any place that attempts to become natural. This is where I grew up and this is what has been instilled in me, a place of indecision, a story of depressed tranquility.

Distribution Options

Access restricted to On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

de Guzman, Sofia, "Have You Met My Sister Brigid?" (2011). Senior Projects Spring 2011. 117.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2011/117