at home
at home
There is a silent drama that exists in all households. One that ebbs and flows within the undercurrent of the family: there is a mystery, a secret, a façade that develops and grows over years. Myself, I grew up in a passive home, giving off the impression of a perfect family, all the while feeling a sense of shame and embarrassment about our lives. After the suicide of my father, there became a desire to make sense of the past, to unravel what had happened and to attempt to piece together markers from my childhood to answer questions. This compilation of truths and half-truths, stories and memories, my own, my family and distant relations, still leaves me trying to sort things out. Does having knowledge of past events tarnish the innocence of a memory? Does a realization alter the depiction of a relationship?
From this experience, I have become more enthralled with the idea of what is going on next door, trying to piece together a story from bits and pieces of an ambiguous narrative. With a focus set within the confines of suburbia and small town life, I combine my personal motifs of memories and combine it with the intrinsically loaded imagery of suburban life. In taking the ideal of the American dream and cascading it with the realities of a cul-de-sac, I have focus on the dualities and contradictions that exist intriguing. The conversation has evolved to bring parallels together: serene and concern, hope and anguish, happiness and depression. In these components a narrative is developed to focus on the uncertainty, to a darker unknown, a loneliness, a solitude, a questioning that resides within these fabricated constructs.
—Cam DeCaussin