Family Album | Spring 2014 | Final Project
For our final we had about seven weeks to create anything we wanted so long as it related to our interpretation of "family." I had been wanting to do this project for a very long time. Between my senior year in high school and freshman year at RISD I had the chance to go visit China with my mom. There, we were able to visit the orphanage and see my file again. This time, we got a new translation that indicated that I may have been with my mother for a short period of time that we had not known about before. After that, I began to think a lot about what I might want to say to her if I ever had the chance to meet her. I also then found several letters that I had written as a child, trying to make sense of where I came from.
For our final we had about seven weeks to create anything we wanted so long as it related to our interpretation of "family." I had been wanting to do this project for a very long time. Between my senior year in high school and freshman year at RISD I had the chance to go visit China with my mom. There, we were able to visit the orphanage and see my file again. This time, we got a new translation that indicated that I may have been with my mother for a short period of time that we had not known about before. After that, I began to think a lot about what I might want to say to her if I ever had the chance to meet her. I also then found several letters that I had written as a child, trying to make sense of where I came from.
That said, Letters for Them is meant to be a place to send and collect letters to birthparents, whether they are known or not. As many adoptees do not know their birth parents for one reason or another, I created Letters for Them as a stand-in "address" to compensate the lack of an actual address.
The Website
Thanks for viewing, if you know anyone who might be interested in contributing please feel free to pass this along or get in contact with me, rhilkey@risd.edu.
