Dear Folks
VIDEO | MFA Thesis Project
This is a correspondence piece, and epistolary film. In it, I assume the guise of my relatives, reading excerpts from their letters now preserved in my family archive. (The title references my great grandparents’ salutary habits.) The video starts with me in Providence—by a letter box, later engaging with my mailman (a fantastically serendipitous shot). Then, one by one, I appear as my great grandfather, Loyd; my great-grandmother, Beryl; my grandmother, Lynnette; and my grandfather, Mike. Providence remains in the background, but each character is framed by a vignette of prairie landscapes. Crisp New England Fall dialogues with the sunny shots I collected during my summertime trip to Nebraska.
This is a correspondence piece, and epistolary film. In it, I assume the guise of my relatives, reading excerpts from their letters now preserved in my family archive. (The title references my great grandparents’ salutary habits.) The video starts with me in Providence—by a letter box, later engaging with my mailman (a fantastically serendipitous shot). Then, one by one, I appear as my great grandfather, Loyd; my great-grandmother, Beryl; my grandmother, Lynnette; and my grandfather, Mike. Providence remains in the background, but each character is framed by a vignette of prairie landscapes. Crisp New England Fall dialogues with the sunny shots I collected during my summertime trip to Nebraska.
In her essay “Packing history, Count(er)ing Generations,” Elizabeth Freeman proposes the term temporal drag. Rebecca Schneider summarizes this concept nicely as “temporal play as cross-generational negotiation.” I had some initial anxiety about dressing up as my relatives—“dressing up” feels cavalier, silly. My inhabiting of these characters was far from that, and act of earnest fondness, of “cross-generational negotiation.” Stepping into these identities through clothing and make-up creates a visceral connection that can’t be achieved through other means. Assuming alternate identities is no flippant matter, even if it appears artificial or oddly exaggerated. That being said, it is a little silly and obviously artificial. It’s very clearly me appearing in different guises. My costuming is enough to signal a change of character, but I do not fully conceal my identity. Nor am I a trained actor providing a studied performance. Yes, I’m going for that squeamish amateurism. It’s a cheekily earnest, physics-bending conversation across space and time—between Providence and Nebraska, between me and my ancestors.