Ingrid Hesling: Smile - A Family Album

In the aftermath of the last war in Europe Ingrid Hesling's adoptive mother moved to England from Austria, but retained her attachment to the political propaganda of her Austrian. Split between opposing cultures and the disoriented by the lies surrounding her adoption at birth by the uncle and aunt, Ingrid Hesling finds the family album a rich source of personal and conceptual issues. By combining the found images from her album with her own contemporary images, she seeks to explore the "family propaganda" inherent in the edited history in the album.

Ingrid Hesling lives in Somerset and has been working as a photographer/artist for fifteen years. She teaches photography in Higher and Further Education and leads projects and workshops within all sectors of the community. Her photographs are in the collections of Somerset County Museum and Somerset Education Department and she has also worked with Channel 4 television. In her latest work 'Smile - A Family Album', she challenges and questions the understanding of the family album as 'innocent, naïve snapshots'. Through research of this genre and combining personal archive and contemporary images, a body of work has been produced using digital technique in order to question society's perception of history, both personal and social.