Pai is an investigation into family-found imagery and its function as personal archive and medium to inform identity creation over time. Derived from the Portuguese language, Pai means father- the artist’s father is the subject of these series. By tracing portraits of the same individual over time, this work represents the temporal nature of photography and the ways in which the photograph can chronicle change alongside one’s identity.
Through the use of found family photographs and recent fingerprints, Pai questions our capacity as humans to connect to our own memories and identify ourselves through fictional narratives, mediated not by recall, but by projection through someone else’s personal journey, independently of their relationship to us. Pai addresses the belief that photographs are able to create and affect memories we hold as individuals. They can replace our abstract memories, certifying our identity - which is constantly in flux.
