My Parallel Archive

2009-ongoing

My Parallel Archive brings together theories of the (de-) constructed image with the confabulation and reworking of personal histories. It draws from substantial domestic archives of my father; notably of the staged image. The work takes a psychoanalytical approach to the distant or lost original through re-enactment, repetition and resemblance of the archival photograph. The work considers how histories are constructed from fragments and explores the ritual image in our understanding of the world and our place within it.

Work-in-progress includes archival audio excerpts of my father and leading psychiatrist Dr. Robert Hemphill assembling medical slides for an audio-visual presentation at Groote Schuur hospital Cape Town in 1972. The psychiatrist rehearses the piece to demonstrate to his students the use of art and poetry in the rehabilitation of psychiatric patients. By detailing the use of objects and colour in an anonymous patient’s artwork and with reference to poet John Clare, who wrote on the alienated and unstable self, he draws parallels with the patient’s mental state. In juxtaposition with the audio is silent video footage of the process of recreating a popular family portrait.

photography, audio, text, drawings and objects.

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