“… And I will Live Forever”: The Intimate Politics of Family Photographs

This invited talk investigated the practice of family photography and its interrelationship with the social domain, with state politics, and issues of cultural difference, class, nationalism and racism. Addressing some visual examples taken from popular culture as well as from less conventional sources, my talk engaged with the fragmentary histories of family photography, and challenged some of the most prominent historical and sociological debates about family photographs. I questioned what political agency family photographs might contain within and beyond the narratives of family life and the domestic sphere. My talk coincided with Fiona Tan’s exhibition at the Gallery, whose artistic practice makes use of family photographs to explore private modes of representation and their meanings in broader social and cultural contexts.