My parents, older sister and I immigrated to the US when I was very young. Growing up far away from any extended family, I missed what I imagined to be the grounding force of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents around me. My parents rarely spoke of their lives in Belgium in the 1940s - 1960s.

 

I showed my mother a photo of a family gathering from her childhood, and asked, “What do you see?” She began to tell me an intergenerational story of feuds over money, alcoholism, infidelity, child abandonment, jealousy, and domestic abuse.

 

This collage series is my interpretation of fragments of family history, as experienced by girls and women.