This feature by Michael Behlen was originally published in Edition 2 of Analog Forever Magazine, Winter 2020.

Family photographs document reality...or do they? We smile and say “cheese,” pose with our arms around each other, and gather close. Are the memories captured, displayed, and reminisced upon the truth, or were they just momentary glimpses into the histories we wish were true? Revisiting these images years later, often captured in our own living room or by strangers we will never meet, we often project what we want to remember about those times or take them at face value. Our memories are fragile, and how you think you remember situations and the relationships within them is oftentimes dependent on how in touch you are with the truth behind the story of the photographs, not just the scenes presented. For photographer and visual artist Liz Albert, it’s quite obvious: “It’s almost like we do it to protect ourselves from any feelings of discomfort we may have later when we are remembering a certain moment.”

In Liz Albert’s latest series, Family Fictions, we are taken on a journey back in time to explore family and social dynamics in the 50s and 60s through photographic slides that she has found, purchased, and combined into diptychs. The scenes she creates feature fictional narratives that look beyond the images themselves in an attempt to redefine and reconcile our individual conflicts between expressing our desires and fulfilling social and familial norms while examining the psychological paradigm of living between the two. These pairings often use humor to highlight the struggle and loneliness of managing society’s expectations while meeting one’s personal needs and desires; a feeling further emphasized by the juxtaposition of individuals in separate frames or worlds. Many of the characters are women, venturing off on their own, whether it be the desert or the mountains, leaving behind the responsibilities of what’s happening in the adjacent frame; both physically and emotionally. It’s uncertain, however, if they will ever get to where they are going––or even if they know where that place is. Though the images presented are both visually and emotionally compelling, it’s the ideas they represent that make them works of art in their own right.

Albert’s interest in analyzing familial concepts via social commentary didn’t begin with Family Fictions. Her passion for intimate imagery began early on in her childhood in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. Born in 1965 to a mother who was an art history professor and artist and a father who was a local builder, she was raised in the era of film photography. Before she can remember, her family owned a ‘60s era Kodak Instamatic camera that was always safely placed in its yellow and red box on the top shelf of her kitchen. Usually only taken out for special occasions, she began utilizing it for childhood games of imagination. One of her favorite pastimes was “playing dress-up” with clothes usually found at rummage sales. At the end of each of her dramatic dress-up sessions, she would emerge from the basement and ask her mother to “take a picture of me.” So if you look through their family albums now, there are many pictures of her dressed up in crazy outfits, posing for the camera. This influenced her outlook on photography early, “I think this early experience influenced my idea of photography as an extension of playing.”

Liz’s love for photography didn’t end there, and she began to focus on art more seriously in high school. Like most creative-minded kids, she felt confined by public schooling and her environment of social expectation that compounded her already challenging personal life; she sought out and took refuge in other alternatively- minded kids, “I wanted to find friends who appreciated me for who I was and were not afraid to be honest about the challenges they were facing and the hypocrisy they saw around them; whether it is in their own families, or out there in the larger world. And having friends with a great sense of humor was also very important to me––and still is!” She found this comrades-in-truth by attending and participating in community theatre, summer camp, and activities with her temple youth group. Her involvement in these activities and her search for acceptance eventually led her to obtain a BFA from the University of Michigan in 1988 and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1992.

It was at Maryland Institute College of Art where she studied with Will Larson and Ann Fessler and began working exclusively with appropriated family imagery and text. She found that once she, and other individuals, went to college to pursue the arts, they were “more aware and open about their family life.” She wouldn’t say that other people she met back then were in similar situations necessarily, but “everyone has issues of some kind with their family––it’s universal. So in that respect, I’ve always felt I can relate to other’s family stories.” It was during this time that she found a big manila envelope with all those negatives from the Instamatic camera in it, which sent her on her mission of pursuing personal and social commentary. And although the world was beginning to evolve into a digital one, it was these images that inspired her to keep working with film because she still loves the ”associations with nostalgia, memory, singularity and imperfection that it embodies.”

Albert embarked on creating Family Fictions by taking a closer look into her own families’ collection of slides that showcased fun family vacations, exciting birthday parties and kids playing fantasy “dress up” that were neatly stored and perfectly arranged in clean metal boxes. However, just like her series, the heavy-heartedness of her family experience was never captured in the history that was methodically left behind. As she dove into her family albums, she began to see “cracks in the facade” and noticed something interesting, “there are a lot of different kinds of pictures, but not that many of my parents together.”

This realization triggered her motivation to express a darker side of herself through Family Fictions that stemmed from difficult early family life. These experiences include her parent’s unhappy marriage and divorce, her father’s illnesses and subsequent death, and her own experience of being bullied and not fitting into society. She shared with us that, “The tension in the diptychs is a reflection of the tension I felt between my parents. And it’s also a reflection of my point of view, as a member of the family–– looking at it from the outside in, witnessing the tension and marinating in it. Not always knowing what it was about, but feeling uncomfortable by it.” Through her series, she examines these ideas and though they are often heartbreaking, she has used her visual art to add humor and understanding into her own past and hopes that her work allows individuals the acknowledgment and reassurance that they’re not alone in the anxiety and uncertainty they may feel within their own family and relationships.

Now a mother and wife herself, Albert has lived through her own version of the family situations she has deconstructed with her photography, including all the tension, struggle, pressure, and even laughter, that comes with it. And although she has always felt the pressure to conform to society’s expectations, as a part of her really enjoys being a mother and wife, she still sees how “conditioned we all are in taking on those roles without question.” She acknowledges that just because we are comfortable in the roles that are inherently assigned to us by society, we should be aware of how we can individually express ourselves, even if it goes against the grain.

Albert’s way to fight against these expectations is through her art, and she encourages you to do the same because even though so much of the world has changed over the decades, there is “still so much to fight against.” We have a long way to go. In the meantime, connect with Liz Albert on her Website and on Instagram.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Behlen is an instant film addict and the founder and publisher of Analog Forever Magazine. For the last six years, Behlen has become an obsessive community organizer in the film photography world, including previously launching the independent publishing projects PRYME Magazine and PRYME Editions, two enterprises dedicated to the art of instant film. Through these endeavors, he has featured and published 250+ artists from around the globe via his print and online publications.

He has self-published two Polaroid photobooks -“Searching for Stillness, Vol. 1” and “I Was a Pioneer,” literally a boxed set of his instant film work. His latest book, Searching for Stillness Vol II was published in 2020 by Static Age. He has been published, been interviewed, and been reviewed in a quantity of magazines and online publications, from F-Stop and Blur Magazine to the Analog Talk Podcast. He loves the magic sensuality of instant film: its saturated, surreal colors; the unpredictability of the medium; its addictive qualities as you watch it develop. He spends his time shooting instant film and backpacking in the California wilderness, usually a combination of the two.

Connect with Michael Behlen on his Website and on Instagram!

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