Family Matters
Portraits and experiences of family today

edited by Riccardo Lami and Franziska Nori

exhibition catalogue: Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, CCCS Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, 14 March–20 July 2014

The bilingual catalogue features the works of international artists who explore images, dynamics and structures that define the concept of family. What do we mean by this term? The concept has changed over the centuries, serving as a mirror but also an active instrument in the transformations of society. Article 29 of the Italian Constitution states that “the family is a natural society based on marriage”, but in her essay the sociologist Chiara Saraceno says that there is nothing less natural than the family. The concept is not unequivocal and has changed over the centuries in relation to different social and geographical conditions.

Over the past few decades, we have experienced yet another decisive evolution of this idea. The videos, photographs and installations on display examine and deconstruct this thought, uniting the autobiographical subjectivity of each artist with a search for meaning shared with the cultural, moral, ethical and biological bonds that, even today, define and identify a family. These debates and reflections open up to a redefinition of the very image and function of family. The exhibition examines two main fronts: analysis of the dynamics that characterize a family, and a survey of the image of the family and what is concealed within it.