emmacolton.com
Family Values
CONCEPT
Family Values takes the form of a social experiment and is documented through a series of photographs and videos. The participatory performance is a reenactment of events that happened to myself and many others who were abandoned and put up for adoption in China’s One Child Policy era during the 80’s through early 2000’s.
-
2 channel video instillation + photo prints
-
2 videos document social experiment on various days in different parts of New York City.
FORMAT
I choose to use the camera as a tool to study human behavior, family values, loss, and trauma. What do we perceive as objects? Do we perceive humans as objects only when infants? Do humans have a price tag?
I pose these ethical questions to my New York City audience by pushing them to consider the dark reality of international and transracial adoption.
In doing so, the project acknowledges the trauma experienced by both members involved. Furthermore, during a time where women’s fundamental rights are being stripped away in the United States, Asian Americans are victims of hate crimes with increasing frequency, and the country becomes more divided, I could not help but notice the lack of adoptee voices in all of these conversations. Where are the spaces where transracial adoptees can feel heard and understood?
By recreating and confronting my own trauma I hope to deconstruct the commonly accepted western“white savior complex'' view. Adoption is not a solution but a privilege. It rarely, if ever, considers the wellbeing of the adoptee. I believe my work will encourage other adoptee’s to speak upon their own experiences and change the narratives surrounding adoption.
