Spitting Image is an ongoing series focused on Chinese Adoptees. If you were me and I were you, would we still end up the same?
Everyone daydreams about the possibilities of a different life. What if I grew up somewhere else, what if I studied a different major, what if I stayed with that partner; the list goes on. For adoptees, that “what if” is much more tangible; we see the possibility of our other selves in front of us, in real time. In 1995, my parents flew to China with a group of 13 other parents to finally complete the adoption process and meet their children for the first time. When they flew back home, we were brought with them to be raised in the US, scattered throughout all parts of the country.
This series has two photographic components; first, a portrait of the adoptee in their own environment. Second, a portrait of me, dressed as the initial sitter, inserted into their environment. By dressing as the other person, I create an intervention of reality and visualize the essential “what if” question. What if the adoption papers had been shuffled around, what if I grew up as you? The two images act as mirrors of each other and the lines begin to blur on which is the concrete truth.
For adoptees, our stories are constantly tethered to themes of adoption, rather than centering the individual, with all of their own nuance and complexity. There is myopic emphasis on narratives of the biological parent search, trips “returning” to birth countries (can you return to a country you don’t remember?), and a deep longing for a history before the act of adoption. This favoritism and hunger for singular narratives keep adoptee stories and representation stuck in the past. As if confirmation of a prior history will somehow correct the future.
This series seeks to create another viewpoint where the adoptee experience is not confined to the past or singularly defined with a neatly tied ending.
People in their studios.
In order: Alannah, Dylan, Pol, Ana, Erica, Pajtim, Jack, Hannah
