“Family Disrupted” is five images from five photographers’ personal projects that explore ruptures in the family structure. Each photographer approaches this from a different angle, some political, some deeply personal.
Ruben Natal-San Miguel photographed the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The devastation impacted families immensely, and his images offer a colorful, electric view into the destruction. Birthe Piontek approaches how Alzheimer’s disease can disrupt the idealization of a parent — tearing, reconstructing and rephotographing old portraits of her mother to signal her fading memory. Collaborators Zora J. Murff and Rana Young, combining images from their own family archives with new narrative images, worked together to investigate the similarities in their own family experiences growing up with absent family members. Addressing a different strain of loss, Rafael Soldi uses dark, monochromatic portraits and photographs of ephemera to process the psychological impact of the sudden disappearance of his former partner years ago. Finally, Griselda San-Martin’s series The Wall centers on the heartbreaking impact of the Mexican border wall on separating families whose members live on each side.
I encourage you to visit these photographers websites and follow them on Instagram to keep up with their work.
Jon Feinstein is a Seattle and New York City-based curator, photographer, co-founder of Humble Arts Foundation and Seattle’s soon-to-open gallery “Found Space.” Jon has curated numerous exhibitions over the past decade, including Future Isms at Glassbox Gallery in Seattle, WA; Radical Color at Newspace Center for Photography, in Portland, Oregon; Another NY for Art-Bridge at The Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, NY; and 31 Women in Art Photography at Hasted Kraetleur in NYC. His projects have been featured in Aperture, The New York Times, PDN, The New Republic, BBC, VICE, The New Yorker, Hyperallergic, Feature Shoot and American Photo, and his writing has appeared in TIME, Slate, GOOD, Daylight, and Whitewall Magazines. His online group show, originally titled “New Cats in Art Photography” was recently published as a hard-bound book, Humble Cats by Yoffy Press. Follow him on Instagram @jonfeinstein and @humbleartsfoundation
This 5×5 is part of Collection: A Family, a release by TAGTAGTAG exploring photographic works on the ideas surrounding contemporary families
