I Am My Family: Photographic Memories and Fictions

Photographer Goldchain describes his family history as one “defined by exile”—many of his Polish-Jewish ancestors immigrated to North and South America; most of those who stayed in Europe perished in the Holocaust. The photographer conceived this “family album” as a means of rebuilding his “self-identity through affiliation with Polish-born ancestors and East European Jewry.” Working with reminiscences from elderly relatives, old photographs, his own memories and imagination, he has created a series of formal studio portraits in which he—with the help of makeup, elaborate costuming and digital retouching—poses as his relatives from the 19th century on. While a few images have the look of amateur theatrics, most of the images are deeply affecting; Goldchain summons up youth, age, heartbreak and hope, and his features, the one constant, reappear in every photograph to suggest family resemblance and continuity. Accompanying narratives lend an almost novelistic depth to the series of photographs, and an appendix that includes production stills, his jottings and pages of vintage family snapshots rounds out this fascinating, commemorative project. 56 duotone and 72 b&w illustrations. (Oct.)