Memories and Artifacts: a family’s relics
Rene M. Hales (2008)
This box is filled with memories and artifacts that belonged to a family from Kentucky. Dig into the objects, images and quotations to make your own narrative. It can be any family ~ dream, contemplate and make your own meaning. It may help you to sort the pictures and quotations in different ways and see where the exploration leads you. Interact with the box. There are many narratives here. Pick up the objects, turn them ‘round, and find your own story.

Ponder questions. . .

How do we know the other? Can we become acquainted with a family through its artifacts and pictorial evidence?

Do we learn more about ourselves as we learn about others?

How does the photographer’s perspective influence your view? Are you seeing only through their lens? What would you have wanted to see or know?

What would you want the image maker to take from your home so others could know you and your family? What do our belongings and arrangements say about us, our beliefs, our ways of interacting and living as family.

Inventory (objects included in the box)
24 photographs (6 X 8 inches)
8 quotations
7 puzzle pieces
3 dice
3 marbles
1 antique handkerchief
1 child’s art project
1 key
1 miniature grater
1 penmanship paper
1 smooth black rock

QUOTATIONS

"As I progressed further with my project, it became obvious that it was really unimportant where I chose to photograph. The particular place simply provided an excuse to produce work . . . you can only see what you are ready to see - what mirrors your mind at that particular time." ~ George Tice

"I think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, I don't find photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges." ~ William Albert Allard

"Photography gives concrete form to the subtlest thoughts. It has the gift of imparting to the dullest, most mechanical and impersonal things the sensitiveness and poetry which admits them into our dreams." ~ Alfred Tolmer

"The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn't what you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organized visual lying". ~ Terence Donovan

"Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still." ~ Dorothea Lange

"Photography for me is not looking, it's feeling. If you can't feel what you're looking at, then you're never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures." ~Don McCullin

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know". ~ Diane Arbus

"People here value their privacy. The streets don’t appear on any map. Homeowners pick their house numbers by whim." ~ J. Peterman Catalog