A New Home
Major thesis project.
Series of 10 chromogenic prints
24x30 inches
2009
This series is an investigation into the home of the first-generation Italian-Canadian in attempt to piece together an “Italian style,” and its significance within our history. The homes I am photographing belong to two Italian immigrant families who arrived in Canada after WWII. Specifically, these are the first homes that these families purchased since arriving in Canada over thirty years ago, and are the same homes they live in today.
The homes I am photographing are more like museums or palaces than domestic dwellings. Decorative wallpaper covers the walls, rich in color, texture and pattern. Large, stately furniture dominates the space, ornamented with family snapshots, floral arrangements or religious icons. “A desire for control and containment, multiplicity rather than simplicity, and most consistent of all, a desire to impose on the spectator a sense of drama…[the Italian-style] is all deliberate, overt, rather formal and imposing.” (Cameron 87)
Elaborately decorated and meticulously maintained, this decorative “Italian style” emphasizes the prosperity and social importance of the people who live there. Its splendors achieved by enormous sacrifice and hard work, the luxurious décor of these homes is the ultimate monument to the family. This grand, ornate décor is also an attempt to imitate a style that is present in their homeland, referencing the grand art and architecture of the baroque period. The owners of these houses are not interested in simply decorating in a familiar style; they intend that their home be a symbolic statement of their ethnic identity. (Cameron 84)
In these photographs I am aiming to distill the richness of the surface and investigate a hybrid culture. Through reinterpreting historic and culturally specific patterns, motifs and architecture, these Italian-Canadian families are creating an environment of ersatz, using local materials and notions of the baroque to create replicas and pastiche resembling their homeland. Therefore, referencing the rich cultural history of their homeland in a country in which they have no history.
Suspending moments between memory and history, my photographs represent a lifestyle and traditions that are fluid and ongoing; a history that is deeply rooted in the past, and reconstructed in the present.
Works Cited:
Cameron, Ann. “The Contemporary Italian House in Toronto.” Italian Canadiana. Vol. 4 (1988): 84-93
Series of 10 chromogenic prints
24x30 inches
2009
This series is an investigation into the home of the first-generation Italian-Canadian in attempt to piece together an “Italian style,” and its significance within our history. The homes I am photographing belong to two Italian immigrant families who arrived in Canada after WWII. Specifically, these are the first homes that these families purchased since arriving in Canada over thirty years ago, and are the same homes they live in today.
The homes I am photographing are more like museums or palaces than domestic dwellings. Decorative wallpaper covers the walls, rich in color, texture and pattern. Large, stately furniture dominates the space, ornamented with family snapshots, floral arrangements or religious icons. “A desire for control and containment, multiplicity rather than simplicity, and most consistent of all, a desire to impose on the spectator a sense of drama…[the Italian-style] is all deliberate, overt, rather formal and imposing.” (Cameron 87)
Elaborately decorated and meticulously maintained, this decorative “Italian style” emphasizes the prosperity and social importance of the people who live there. Its splendors achieved by enormous sacrifice and hard work, the luxurious décor of these homes is the ultimate monument to the family. This grand, ornate décor is also an attempt to imitate a style that is present in their homeland, referencing the grand art and architecture of the baroque period. The owners of these houses are not interested in simply decorating in a familiar style; they intend that their home be a symbolic statement of their ethnic identity. (Cameron 84)
In these photographs I am aiming to distill the richness of the surface and investigate a hybrid culture. Through reinterpreting historic and culturally specific patterns, motifs and architecture, these Italian-Canadian families are creating an environment of ersatz, using local materials and notions of the baroque to create replicas and pastiche resembling their homeland. Therefore, referencing the rich cultural history of their homeland in a country in which they have no history.
Suspending moments between memory and history, my photographs represent a lifestyle and traditions that are fluid and ongoing; a history that is deeply rooted in the past, and reconstructed in the present.
Works Cited:
Cameron, Ann. “The Contemporary Italian House in Toronto.” Italian Canadiana. Vol. 4 (1988): 84-93
