Installations
Family Album
pine, oak, brass, glass - 6 elements, each approx. 32" x 66" x 4"
Vine Lake Cemetery, Medfield, MA
Family Album consists of a series of solid wood doors, set in to the ground at a range of heights. The doors rising out of the ground (or rather, sinking into it) mimic the upright, rectangular shapes of cemetery headstones; and like the headstones, they stand in a family grouping, with a variety of styles and sizes. Each door is equipped with a peephole viewer (the kind used for seeing who is outside your door) — but when visitors look in, they see not the other side of the door, but tiny snapshots taken from my family’s albums; some recently deceased, others long since passed.
Images seen through a peephole are both near and far: the images appear far off, but it requires getting right up against the door to see them. The doors are arranged such that the most recent deaths are nearest and tallest, while older ones will be successively more sunken, with the oldest almost lost into the ground: as more time passes, it becomes harder and harder to access those memories.
Of course, the door knobs are only on the front side — these doors represent a one-way passage.