My immediate family has never visited Niagara Falls together, even though it is only a three hour drive from our home in Upstate New York. Yet, the well known tourist destination is present in many of the photographs taken by both sides of my extended family. The images are acts of proof, evidence revealing their visits to the sublime. Lesser-known waterfalls also appear in our family albums. They are meditations nestled between snapshots of family gatherings mirroring how they occur in the landscape and establishing the waterfall as motif in my families’ visual history. Instead of functioning as a grandiose force of nature, cascading water is a common occurrence.

The waterfall imagery is a metaphor in my work for the crushing force of alcoholism and addiction. Mental health goes undiscussed in my family, but our shared photographic archive offers a glimpse into moments left undocumented. Using their photographs as a point of departure, I reinterpret familiar landscapes and create an opportunity for connection with my family members, both past and present. Responding to their images, I create photographic conversations and poetic fragments. The accordion books containing these photographs depict unfolding visual conversations between generations. By incorporating their images into my growing photographic archive, I am reflecting on family history and the weight of unseen struggles.

One family image depicts a bucolic country scene and was reproduced as a series of identical cyanotypes then toned in whiskey over 17 days. The resulting prints were sequenced onto a video timeline and printed to 16mm film. Displayed using a movie projector fitted with a custom looping apparatus, the projected image cyclically decays in reference to repeated patterns of declining mental health and substance abuse. After the sequence is finished, it plays again and the cycle perpetuates.

Heirlooms, an oversized drum leaf bound book, contains images depicting keepsakes my family has saved alongside the detritus of my parent’s daily lives. Precious objects sit on shelves above piles of mail and the walls are adorned with photographs that span generations. My family home functions as an archive, collapsing multiple generations into one space through the things we hold onto.