Observing Memories Issue 3 | Page 58

project that brings together issues of family, identity and explain his origins and family lineage through
and history in a deceptively simple way. his own person, challenging the observer to imagine
I Am My Family features a series of portraits in
the likely similarities and differences between the
which Goldchain transforms himself into his own relatives represented, just as we do when browsing
relatives through the elaborate use of makeup and through traditional photograph albums.
clothing to recreate old photographs from the family
However, I Am My Family also goes far beyond
archive. While it may first appear to be a simple depicting an average family. Each portrait is
and playful exercise in emulating and recreating accompanied by the relative’s name and their date
the traditional family album, there are other far and place of birth and death. It is this aspect that
more complex interpretations hidden underneath takes the family portrait to a new level, representing
the surface. Firstly, the artist experiments with the origin of a Polish Jewish family, the terrible fate
recreating his direct family members and ancestors many of them suffered and the subsequent diaspora
through the medium of the portrait, blurring the of the survivors, who would end their lives in
limits of the concept of self-portrait and, as a places as far-flung from one another as Argentina,
result, the brutal connection established with family Chile and Israel, their surname undergoing various
identity in this way and the genetic inheritance that transformations, but they themselves never losing
they have passed down to the artist himself. In this sight of their common origin. And at the same time
respect, it makes perfect sense for Goldchain to try this sensational project tackles a topic as huge as
1.Book cover I am my family | © Princeton Archi-
tectural Press 2008. Essays by Martha Langford
and Rafael Goldchain
2 / 3 / 4. Alfredo Jaar, The Silence of Ndu-
wayezu, detail, 1997. 1 million slides, light table,
magnifiers, and illuminated wall text. Table 36
inches × 217 34 inches × 143 inches. Text 6
inches × 188 inches. © Alfredo Jaar
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Observing Memories
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ISSUE 3