Not Your Typical Family
Project details
- Year
- 2020
- Programme
- advertising-beyond
- Practices
- Autonomous
- Minor
- Honours /Visual Culture
In reaction to the change in my personal life, I was confronted with my singular view of what defines family, while I claimed to be open-minded I could not imagine my typical family changing into something less ordinary. Looking for the origins of my narrow-minded view, I found that the nuclear family is in decline but the media landscape is slow to reflect this change. Partly because it is simply hard to visualise a family without using stereotypes and we are still lacking a better visual representation of a family.
We need to redefine the visual language we use to talk about family as this same misrepresentation will reinforce the ideals we as a society are already moving away from. We need to work on a language that is more inclusive and shows the parts often hidden from plain sight. It seems impossible to define a new language to talk about a family that we do not know of. The only way we can even start this shift is to open up about family, to normalise the odd stories, and to celebrate the differences instead of creating outcasts. Only with these stories in mind, we can redefine the visual language.
Part One
My perfectly moulded family is transitioning into a new form, a slow process that will break us apart and bring us together again. A transition that will continue indefinitely, in which sometimes it might look as if nothing happens, other times everything changes in the blink of an eye, requiring constant attention. We only know that we will transform together as a family, endlessly.
Part two
We need to open up about family to paint a more inclusive picture for all. To do this we need to bring the unknown stories into the public view. Celebrate the oddities and difficulties together to make people feel included.
Do you have a story that doesn’t fit the public conversation? Call me, I’d love to listen. All these stories will be the starting point for Part two, as my story is already out there it’s now time for yours. Call me at +316 19 28 57 66
Not your typical family is an real time installation that should be experienced in an offline environment. Due to Covid-19, the viewing will be held in October.