My research question: How to reveal, through a narrative structure, the generational differences between my father’s point of view and my own based on the archive of our trip in South East Asia?
As you all know now, I am working with different narratives from different archival pieces collected during my trip in South East Asia with my father along with older archives. I want to recount this intense experience I went through with my father. In order to do that, the viewer is invited to learn more about our life in general. That means I need to include some supporting narratives by creating a definition and a method for them. I need to determine what information the reader needs to know about us such as our identity, background, etc. Furthermore, I need to experiment with those subnarratives to know how I will integrate them in my story (word, image – structure, formal) and what is the chosen material needed to find in my older archives.
The narratives I am playing with function as a duality; pairs of things (different/similar), dialogues (agree/disagree) which lead to a dual structure in the medium of book. The problem I am facing is my intentionality to become clearer. I am aware of the fact that the subject I want to touch on is the father/daughter relationship through my own experience, because eventually I consider this quite a personal project.
My aim is to play with previous experiences I had with my father and link them with those of the trip. I am therefore playing with thematics such as time/place – identity/age. Once those formal visual vehicles are created, I would use them as part of my design. In order to do that, I am starting to map my narratives by integrating a definition and a method for them and therefore create a basic structure. I understand that I need to lead the reader into the story and therefore hold his hand all the way through. I am the mediator between the object (book) and the reader.
The questions I am trying to answer at this moment are: What is my intention? What do I want to communicate? What would be interesting for the reader to see?
For the moment, I am looking in more details at Sophie Calle’s work (picture above). She plays with images and narration as a game and a perpetual autobiography, in attempt to ward off the anguish of absence, while creating a relationship with the other controlled by herself. If you have other artists or work I could look at, please contact me.
Thank you for reading,
Albane.
LCC MAGD GROUP V 