Exchanging Glances

Exchanging Glances (Blickwechsel) Project: Ina Schoenenburg Family is difficult to explain. You were born into it, and it is the first thing you come to know. Within your family you find (ideally) the security and the score for your development to become finally yourself. It is deeply plugged inside of us, sometimes deeper than we would like it to be. In the company of family you feel reminded to where you are coming from, you recall untroubled days of being a child, but you might remember also conflicts and the absence of understanding. How you see yourself also depends on how you perceive your family members. It is crucial how you look at them: lovingly, distantly, indulgently, disparagingly, ... it determines what you might see and what you don’t. Over a period of three years I have photographed my parents, my daughter and me. I wanted to create a story that goes beyond personal sensitivities. A story that tells about becoming and being an adult, about closeness and distance in a family, about aspirations, buried anxieties, unspoken tensions, and of course about the unique and weird love that parents feel about their children and vice versa.