Isabelle Legaspi - The Kitchen Table Series

 

Inspired by Carrie Mae Weems's "The Kitchen Table Series"

On Photography

"Photographs really are experiences captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood." 

Photography has become one of our immediate sources to capture experiences. It is the go-to when a parent wants to remember their baby’s firsts, or when an athlete scores first place in their sport, or when you feel really really happy. It's up to you to take a video or photo of that experience, but leave it to the camera to transform that short moment into something that lasts forever.

“Photographs, which package the world, seem to invite packaging. They are stuck in albums, framed and set on tables, tacked on walls, projected as slides.”

Whenever I think of something from the past, I’m urged to look through the photo albums just to see if my mom kept a picture from that time, or scroll up in my photos app. Photography, so old, but so evolved. It started off weak, making decades old photos easy to destroy with time or fire. Now you can scan a photo from the past and have it uploaded onto a screen. 

Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems's Landmark "The Kitchen Table Series"

“Weems’s black and white photographs are like mirrors, each reflecting a collective experiences: how selfhood shifts through passage of time; the sudden distance between people, both passable and impassable; the roles that women accumulate and oscillate between; how life emanates from the small space we occupy in the world.”

Weems’s decision to take black and white photographs adds to the viewer’s perspective that the scenes taken from that table are meant to be timeless and relatable. Women can picture themselves at that table, doing the same or similar thing.

 “”Everyone can relate to this work,” Sann said. “It’s not just Black women; it’s white woman, Asian women. Men can see the women in their lives- memories from their childhood are scenes from their marriage or their family life. It’s so universal and yet representation like this is so rare.””

Looking at Weems and her companions doing whatever activities at that kitchen table, it reminds me of when I help my mom make food, when my dad helped with elementary school homework, and when my parents sat my siblings and I down for serious talks. Every photo in Weems’s “The Kitchen Table Series” is relatable, a common and repetitive experience in almost everyone’s lifetime.