As a child, the family album and the world atlas presented a stimulatingly visual and complete universe. The inner and the outer, my place and my history, the places and the history of the world.
We each operate within and between our own personal systems of “album” and “atlas,” where ever they meet is perhaps our experience of “place” (intimate but with a public address.) We like to think of a place as deeply anchored, firmly located, dependable. But in reality, it is always in movement, a stretchy, cozy and/or itchy membrane, between our perceived individual/familial boundedness and the broader world with which we connect. It is complicated by histories, personal and world, that have through-lines that can unbalance or surprise, ah-ha moments, and oh-no moments.
The stories we beautifully tell of finding the right place, returning to the right place, and even recognizing the wrong place. Narratives unwind through image and text, a daughter returns, a family arrives, a young woman flees, generations root, a “custodian” dedicates.
