Shane Lavalette

August 8th, 1982, 2004 (from “Seven Years”)
© Trish Morrissey

This past Thursday I went to a lecture at the Museum of Fine Arts by Irish photographer Trish Morrissey. Morrissey discussed her early influences that led her to work within the documentary aesthetic of photography, touching on both Diane Arbus and Ralph Eugene Meatyard and then later, Laurie Simmons – all whom she educated herself on while working a job as an archivist.

Morrissey’s early work dealt with such topics as twins and mirroring relationships, the male body as an object of the female gaze, women with moustaches (WWM), and the sexualized pregnant body. This work all proceeded her more recent interest in family, memory preservation (the photo album), and the domestic space.

Morrissey began a project which considered these very themes, focusing on old family snapshots and, essentially, recreating them as large-format images in collaboration with her sister. The two play the roles of themselves, their parents, aunts, and various friends. No names appear beneath these photographs of innocent moments, just dates which allow the viewer to gather the decade or time of year. At her talk, Morrissey said she was looking at the “family album as fiction.” The air of innocence and lightheartedness present in the scenes suggest something deeper and potentially darker is also at work.

According to Alison Green in Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography (2006) the phrase “documentary aesthetic” is appropriate, specifically in reference to her series Seven Years, because Morrissey “courts the real by staging pictures.” She introduces performance to a familiar visual language.

September 20th, 1985, 2004 (from “Seven Years”)
© Trish Morrissey

Green goes on to say,

The theorizing inevitably gets tangled up in photography’s historical relationship with “truth” and its postmodernist critique. With Morrissey, however, staging is more than an arch gloss on the impossibility of representation; it is a door left open to let us view her in the act of constructing photographic meaning—imagining, remembering, planning, staging, acting, looking, deciding. It is her way into the heart of such issues as family experiences and national identities, pastimes and fashion, feminine and masculine roles, and relationships between strangers. Her work does not so much define these subjects but uses photography to probe their boundaries, often left intact in everyday life.

November 15th, 1975, 2004 (from “Seven Years”)
© Trish Morrissey

I thought I’d share Trish’s work here for those who may be fond of and/or working within this genre of photography. There are other interesting images from this series here (some larger versions here).