Narrating bodies 1998-99
Installation comprising photographs, mirror
Dimensions variable
Collection: The artist

Performance
September 1999

Amanda Heng’s photographic installation explores the artist’s relationship with her mother in terms of intimacy, aging, love and memory. Over the past two years Heng developed a series of photographs culminating in this powerful and intimate photographic tableaux. The work juxtaposes recent photographs with old family portraits, some of which have been manipulated by the artist. Heng says: ‘The work uses our self-portraits and bodies as vehicles to confront stereotypes, to voice an opinion on sexual politics and conceptions of identity and history, generally, personally and from the viewpoint of a woman. I work with my mother to reproduce images from old photographs to recollect our history and culture. It is intended to be neither autobiographical nor a nostalgic search for a childhood. It is rather to re-work and re-live the experience of living and sharing our pain and joy as mother and daughter... .’

Artist's statement:

I have always enjoyed taking photographs for the family. It gave me a sense of participation in the family events. I could decide how the photographs should look and what stories the photographs should tell. It was natural to use photographs when I started to work with my mother on the issues of communication and the relationship between mother and daughter. The work uses our self-portraits and bodies as vehicle to confront the stereotypes, to voice an opinion on sexual politic and conception of identity and history, generally, personally and from the viewpoint of a woman.

I work with my mother to re-produce images from old photographs to recollect our history and culture. It intends neither to be autobiographical nor a nostalgic search for a childhood. It is rather to re-work and re-live the experience of living and sharing our pain and joy as mother and daughter, a process often taken to be unimportant in a social structure dominated by the patriarchal culture. The act of re-constructing narratives from the memory of our sufferings and aspirations is central to the work.

I wanted to explore memory through photographs, not in the way we are taught to look at and take photographs as compositions. My eyes always wondered beyond the photographs as a whole in search of the details: a look, a symbol, a stance, a piece of clothing, a hand, a touch, insignificant details which seem to contain meanings seeking to articulate. I wanted to re-produce in images the way in which my eyes scoured the photographs, searching for new ways of understanding.

As the American poet and writer, bell hooks wrote: "To begin re-visioning, we must acknowledge the need to examine the self from a new, critical standpoint ... It is not sufficient to know the personal, but to know - to speak in a different way." I want the work to be an active process of remembering, searching and seeking new forms of articulation.