My grandfather gave my mother a couple of old family photo albums. When I first looked at the pictures they amazed me. No one in the family wanted to keep them so I took them. And the gorgeous photo series called “Familienalbum” developed.
Essay on the Familienalbum series
The photo series Familienalbum consists of old photographs found in my family. I did some computer manipulations on these photos. Basically I did take photos of myself and pretended that I was also present in these past photographs.
Most of the people in these photographs I don’t know at all. There are only stories I have been told about these characters. It is a whole photo album that my grandfather gave my mum and she didn’t want it because there are people in this book that she dislikes. I love the photo book. I found really funny photos in there. I remember one person that is constantly visible in this photo album. It is my great-grandfather; he lived in the basement, when my mum and me still where living at my grandmothers place. He had a huge cabinet of candies down there. I liked him. My mum is still shouting about him: “he was a member of the party, weakling, arrant liar, stupid loser!” Anyways, the candies he had where delicious.
So they are my relatives, that’s where I come from? I am standing in direct blood relation with these people. We have almost the same genotype. I am there offspring. Maybe that’s where I got my big nose from, or other characteristics. Do they love food as much as I do? Was one of them an artist as I am? But one thing is for sure they have as much fun at the Christmas reception as we do!
Ina Marie Schmidt, 2010