Emma Seale

This body of work attempts to explore themes of the human experience through the lens of my own family, through archival photographic materials that have been passed down to me. Dangerous Cliffs is inspired by loss of memory, loved ones, and all the landscapes where these people and their lives once existed. Photographs exist independently from any future loss, remaining unchanged and held still in time at a singular point. This phenomenon opens a window of disconnect for us to peer through, and sometimes step through completely. Layering past, present, and future into one space is a concept investigated heavily within the field of photography, creating a rich dialogue I can only attempt to add to by mining my own family’s archives.  

 

My exploration surrounds a collective familial memory, and how undeniable its impacts become as time moves forward, lineages burgeoning. Through the process of moving through timelines I exist at the end of, I have allowed for my own deeply held, and perhaps just as deeply disillusioned perception of this cast of characters to be challenged and altered by the medium. The moments of my family’s history captured in tangible form display a mere fraction of all events, leaving out the most traumatic and deeply uncomfortable truths. Despite this, the nuances of the passionate messy lives they led can be detected to me even in the smallest details of an image, its mark sometimes invisible to an undiscerning eye. Our blood and fates bind us, deeply loving and misunderstanding one another. As lies and truths at equal turn are forgotten, retold in grandeur, or subconsciously retained by progeny, a legacy of emotion emerges, unique to each member of this group of souls. This series seeks to capture my own conception of my loved ones, in all its inaccuracy and idealism.