Family photos and memory: shifts of contemporary art

Abstract

The article aims to discuss, through the analysis of three works by contemporaries artists, the complex relationship between family photographs and memory when displaced from their everyday and familiar context to the field of art. One of the best known functions of social photography is to help the individual and collective memory. This becomes even more evident when it comes to family photos, that help to build a chronological narrative of a particular family group. However, what happens when these images are displaced from their usual contexts (being the home of a member of the family, or history museums and archives of everyday history) to be part of artwork? This paper reflects on the Rosangela Rennó’s work Bibliotheca (2002), I am my family (2008), from Rafael Goldchain and Time-capsule (1997), Eduardo Kac, as examples of how contemporary art can reveal new perspectives for this type of photographic practice.