We are a species heavily biased to the visual and becoming more photocentric by the minute. Photographs are chronographic
aberrations, notion pictures and memento mori. ‘They give people imaginary possession of a past that is unreal.’ Every
time we go through the family album we visit the dead (even if they are still alive) and tell stories about the deceased (even when it is ourselves
on the photographs and we wish to assert a continuity). |
They do not include, for example, pictures
of the truly dead, the divorce ceremony or the parent or sibling seriously ill in hospital. Without doubt, one of the reasons is that the family
is not a fixed institution, but a dynamic entity. |
