Bounds of Inheritance

Bounds of Inheritance depicts a search for truth and wholeness by giving voice to what was hidden and lost within my own family lineage. This project is centered on my aunt’s story in relationship to her father, my maternal grandfather. In 2004 she revealed to me that he had sexually abused her as a young teenager, a dark secret she held for most of her life. The truth was traumatic and difficult to digest. He had been a beloved grandfather to me and my siblings, and this was a side of him that our family never knew. He presented as a man of dignity and integrity, even in the way he dressed, always walking proudly, and wearing a distinctive fedora hat. As his posthumous shadow emerged, we grappled with this paradox, and themes of duality and illusion. I discovered other “shadow” stories within my family involving similar themes of abuse and broken trust, within four overlapping generations. As a pattern emerged, it reinforced for me that family legacies are not by accident; they are intergenerational, and therefore passed on and repeated. Bounds of Inheritance is in part a healing journey in the understanding that–– confronting the dark is a catalyst for growth and transformation, and that by seeking and knowing the truth, we dismantle the invisible inheritances that keep us bound in darkness.