LIZ M TOBIN

My interest in the familial photographic archive emanates from my own concerns towards the intrinsic myth of veracity I perceive the family photo-album to possess and subsequently how the regime of truth inherent within in this discourse influences subjective consciousness. 

This work attempts to disrupt and transform the reading of artefacts from the familial photographic archive through cutting up and re-ordering photographs from my own family’s photo-albums. It is through this process of deconstruction and recontextualizing the familial photographic archive that I create alternate meaning and thus expose the photographic album as a contrived cultural construct which endeavours to retain and naturalise specific versions of reality. Principally, my creative work is an attempt to subvert the authority of the archive and to force this artefact into a self-reflective space.

It is through this work that I question "the photographic archive as a collection of objective documents” (Enwezor, 2008) and investigate how this artefact has power to influence processes of remembrance and identity.