I wanted to create an imaginary horizontal line establishing a height for both my son and I. Rather than make it a scientific activity like Eadweard Muybridge, I wanted to use the formal conventions of the family photograph - the Happy Snap. This is a project that is in progress as my son learns how to walk and beyond.
The first photograph was taken initially without a sense of its being important but it quickly inspired me to make this artwork. When my son walked and I supported him with my hand on the low wall in front of our home in Hove, we felt extremely happy from this interaction at the same height, so I recorded the image. After enlarging this photograph, I started to find other scenes in which we could stand at the same height and this became an important regular event in our life.
As this project developed, I found I gained greater personal understanding of the meaning of these happy family photographs which I felt I was asked to commit myself to by my own culture. The smile, I discovered, rather than being just what is expected of the Mother, came naturally from the happiness I felt at my son’s growing and our interdependence. It seems to imply that we love to get along with each other without the pressure of gender-different expectations. I attempted to express equality and mutual respect between mother and son through visual equality everywhere. I hope that through this visual code of practice, we can often remind ourselves to treat other people equally and with mutual respect.
I think this attitude is as important to my son as primogeniture. I don’t want the conventional status of primogeniture to make him arrogant or pressure him with a lot of responsibility when we go back to our country. Moreover, I expect that the unequal weighting of gender, the male-centredness of previous generations will have diminished greatly by the time he is grown up.