Speaking of Silence: Exploring Family Memory Loss

Abstract

This paper will offer justification for the creation of my thesis projects: Everything Is Still: An examination of home movie moments and too soon too late. For several years my work has dealt with families and loss with a special interest in communication. My thesis work addresses grief within my own family concerning my grandmother’s depression and suicide. When I began this project I thought of it as a video intervention with my father and his siblings to discuss memories of their mother, Mary Arlene, and her suicide on December 21, 1983. It is a culmination of several years of research and difficult conversations. This past Christmas, while in production on the above project, I experienced the loss of my maternal grandmother, Lucille, to depression-induced suicide. Through working with my father’s family, I began to realize how important it is to address grief directly and seek therapy; after this recent loss, with the support of my professors and peers I began working with a therapist. The grieving process has complicated and changed the course of my project, which is why I chose to present it in two parts. Both projects explore loss within the context of family systems and reinterpret home movies of the 1940s-1960s. I am interested in what families chose to document/reveal and when families stop documenting/remembering.