They Say It's Genetic

I started from the premise that family building is a kind of myth building. To understand the mythology of my family I researched those early figures--the far-away family members that came and went before my time but are responsible for the foundation of my extended family. I then explored how I fit into this construction of family by reflecting on my own inherited names and traits and illnesses. Throughout I wanted there to be an undercurrent of the relationship between that kind of truth and fiction that is special to a myth laden family construction. What is spoken and what goes unspoken, the stories that everyone in the family knows and shares and those that are equally well known but kept hidden, out of sight--how both play a large part in the final product of family.