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Life Story Work is a recognised part of social work practice. It is a collaborative project between a child who are in foster care (who is preparing to move on to a long term foster carer on into adoption) and their social worker. Part of the project is to take photographs of people and places that have been important to the child; such as the birth family, previous foster carers, places where they used to live, schools attended etc. These are put in a book called a Life Story Book. When the child moves on into their new life these photographs provide a precious link with the past, helping to preserve the child’s sense of identity. Although precious to the child, these images cannot give an honest account of the child’s past., and as the child grows up there will be questions that the life story book cannot answer. For example a photograph of a healthy mother with a charming smile, may mask her inability to care properly for children. For example the photograph might have been taken when she came out of a drug rehabilitation unit, before she relapsed back into her addiction. In the Life Story Book, text is a vital component, to give context to the photographs. In my series of photographs called Life Story Work, I explore my heritage and also different childhood and adult identites, but I have taken full control of the process. All the photographs are of myself, usually taken by other people, under my direction. The images are constructed, so unlike documentary images they do not provoke a feeling of authenticity. Ironically therefore, although I have contructed a commentary on my past, and my different identities, from my memories and feelings,;these images might be a more honest record of the past, than the pictures taken for foster children by their social workers. There is a varying degree of Photoshop montage and manipulation in the photographs, from none to a great deal. As with other Life Story Work photographs, some context is helpful. My father was a German Jewish Refugee who lost many of his relatives in Auchwitz, but after coming to Britain as a young teenager he turned his back on Jewish religion and culture, and Germany was never discussed. The only Jewish-ness I have, is my name. I was raised in Scotland, but my Scottish mother felt very warmly towards England, as she had lived in Kent for many years during her childhood. She had difficult feelings about her Irish father, who was an alcoholic. I have now lived in England for 25 years (half my life) so I sometimes wonder how Scottish I am. On another note, the term “Asthmatic” implies that “suffering from asthma” becomes part on one’s identity, so I thought I needed to make a photograph about that part of my identity. I will leave the context of the other images to the viewers imagination |