THE NOTION OF FAMILY: FAMILY WORK 2002-2008

My position and role as daughter, photographer, and filmmaker transcends the objective practice in classic documentary, which has continuously undermined the Black family experience by avoiding our emotional and psychological realm.

The collaboration between my family and myself blurs the line between self-portraiture and social document. Utilizing photography and video to navigate dynamics of the roles we play complicates the usual classifications of functional and dysfunctional families.

My work has a deep concern for the mother/ daughter relationship. Relentlessly documenting encounters with my mother and grandmother enables me to break unspoken intergenerational cycles. Their silent familial gaze in the photographs juxtaposed with our voices reveals the tension between how we relate.

The role of the male figure; father, brother, lover and son resides in the visual tensions of a dying old man; Gramps, an innocent adolescent; JC and a soldier; my brother Sergeant Brandon Frazier. They indicate the absence of men in the household.

Grandma Ruby played the role of mother to me and JC, and caretaker to her father, Gramps. Being home consisted of routine checks on Gramps who screamed for help to be picked up off the floor or carried to the bathroom. If we were not tending to Gramps we sat in separate rooms. Family secrets, hidden history and constant silence defined our coexistence.

Mom is co-author, artist and subject. Our relationship only exists through a process of making images together. I see beauty in all her imperfections and abuse. Her drug addiction is secondary to our psychological connection. When we are capturing one another we meditate on our difference and sameness.

Holiday visits home rupture the silent familial gaze in our experimental documentary series "A Mother to Hold." Through the first person point of view, the camera becomes a magnet attracting and repelling; the viewer has the access to experience and acknowledge our relationship without judgment.