Kate Rowles and Family in Context: Many Happy Returns

An introduction to 'household' through lens
Through eye, glass and view-finder
Through old VHS
Through wobbly frames and aging

Family speaks of mortality, of age and aging, of generation and generation gap. It embodies a structure of need and reliance, of care and commitment. It takes on a specificity and a locale, and holds on to a sense of value and tradition. It is for hope and consolation, it is a constellation, and perhaps, for some, the point of it all.

This ongoing series of 'home videos' engages with an acknowledgement of 'family' as verb, as doing word. I am exploring ways to frame, perform and record that 'doing' through the development of a collaborative practice with my own family. In actively exploring the relationships between us and the house we have in common, there is an effort to learn a version of family, our version.

Working largely within the domestic tradition of home video-making, we attempt to record ourselves 'from below'* as historical subjects, and to acknowledge the care and negotiation involved in our belonging. It is not perfect and we have other commitments, but we have ways of being with each other, and this helps. Much of the work operates through the idea of 'serious play' as conceived by the late Jo Spence as part of her writings on Phototherapy. As time passes, I realize that moments are slipping through our fingers and we need to make something of them. Holding on to a sense of personal dedication, negotiation and risk both in and outside the frame, I attempt to articulate the particularities of our mortal ties and social lives that are both privately and publicly bound. 'Many Happy Returns' means Happy Birthday, means live long! Means come back, please come back.

"Dwelling historically meant to settle a piece of land, work it and build a home on it - to stay in a place. Building meant much the same thing but with connotations tied to the construction of material form and thereby establishing a form of life. Behind this distinction is the overlapped set of connotations whereby building also means cherishing, caring, protecting, preserving and nurturing". (Dart, Tim, 1999, Material Culture in the Social World, Buckingham: Open University Press, 61-2)

*History from below is a concept of historical narrative in social history, which focuses on the perspectives of ordinary people, rather than political and other leaders. The term was coined by French Historian Georges Lefebvre (1874-1959) and was popularised by British Marxist Historians during the 1960's (Wikipedia, 7 July 2008, http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/History_from_below).

© Kate Rowles. 2007