The Feeling is Mutual: When Open House Became a Home
Installation view from The Feeling is Mutual, 2018, Courtesy of Brandon Frederick
The Feeling is Mutual at Open House explored ideas of intimacy within our home-based
relationships through various forms of new media. Photographs and video were scattered
around the unfinished walls that reference the underlying structure of our understanding of a
home. Typically, a home could be defined in two ways: by the space itself, or by the
relationships that manifest between humans inside these spaces. Our ease in familiar
spaces is an acknowledgement that they have been experienced before; whether by actual
occupation or the feelings they engender.
Walking through the front door, one immediately encountered Sarah Stracke’s voyeuristic
black and white portraits depicting the life of an aged woman. These images celebrated her
beauty and the familiarity of the unknown woman in “Tending to Chores.” We don’t know who
she is or where she is going, but it is easy to feel as though she has been known for years.
This closeness occurs through her powerful and gentle look into the camera that also
embodies the typical grandmother aesthetic of schlepping many bags at one time, and
always bringing random objects just in case someone needs them. It’s lack of specificity in
location transported me to my grandmother’s house in Wisconsin. Even though the subject
looks almost nothing like my own grandmother, the qualities of a caring older woman
embodied in the photograph align with those of my own experience.
Sarah Stracke, Tending to Chores, 35 mm black and white film photograph, Courtesy of Brandon
Frederick.
“A Portrait of my Grandmother” depicted the same woman in a bathroom setting, typical of
something you would see in an elderly person’s home, with it’s wood cabinets behind the
toilet and various knick-knacks.’ One also becomes aware of her gaze reflected in the mirror
as her back is turned away from the lens. Wrapping her hair in a towel, drying it after
washing in the sink, we are offered a small glimpse into what her life is like as an older
woman, through the objects found around her sink.
Specific moments of existential anxiety within a relationship between a father and a son were
documented by Troy Colby through photographs from his series, “This will pass. I promise
you.” Colby uses the camera to capture moments of intimate inner looking within his son’s
life as he ages. The sense of anxiety felt within these photographs stray from most of the
content that is directly depicted within them. The melancholic tone speaks to his concerns he
has for his son’s future. In contrast to Stracke’s grandmother portraits, these photographs
convey a similar, gentle feeling while putting viewers in the artist’s point of view as the father.
There was a sense of worry the artist had in this image towards how his son’s life will
develop. Through these depictions Colby provides us a glimpse of what it’s like to experience
the world through his son.
Installation view from The Feeling is Mutual, 2018, Courtesy of Brandon Frederick
Lilly McElroy’s performance, “Show Me That You Love Me,” is a piece in which she asked
her mother to take pictures of the reasons why she loves her. Using a Kodak Funsaver
camera, which referenced the camera used by Lilly in her adolescence, her mother
photographed things within her own space that embodied these specific reasons. Capturing
things like the bathroom sink in Lilly’s childhood house and old childhood drawings, Lilly’s
past is revealed through the lens of her mom, from a viewpoint that can only be obtained
through understanding their relationship. Lilly then proceeded to tell the stories behind the
objects in the images, defining the subjects and explaining their significance to us. Using the
format of a presentation alongside a compiled slideshow showcasing the media and their
captions, Lilly delivers a 30-minute lecture on the reasons she believes her mother loves her.
Providing her audience with short anecdotes, she used photography as a gateway between
us and the intimate relationship she shares with her mom.
Lilly McElroy, Reasons Why My Mother Loves Me, performance, 2018, Courtesy of Brandon Frederick
The way time impacts relationships is clear in Graham Carroll’s video, “The Memory
Unlimited” Carroll’s video explores the relationship of a friend-of-a-family figure, set up on a
small, old tube television in the back corner of the space. The e-video felt as if we were
getting a close look at a couple of old friends and how their friendship first started to unfold.
This work had a relationship to the question of time which was also addressed in the Tonia
Hughes photograph, “Joyce and Her Clocks” We see a woman sitting on a bedroom floor,
surrounded by nine wooden antique clocks placed around her. This print explores our
relationship to time itself, as the woman within the photograph and her dog laying on the
couch have their heads down in thought. She looks as if she’s trying to ignore the clocks that
are stationed around her in a broken circle. She is passive, allowing time to consume her. In
conversations centered around family, time is important.
Installation view from The Feeling is Mutual, 2018, Courtesy of Brandon Frederick
The friends I have made while in Kansas City have quickly filled the void of not being
physically close to my own family. This term of familial comfort can be applied to anyone who
shows you unconditional love, no matter what the circumstances are. Family is about
withholding a level of intimacy with the persons involved. We experience varying levels of
intimacy, and the level of comfort shifts between people depending on the relationships in
between. When walking through the space, the closeness of the work made me feel like I
was a part of a third family. Shared experience is what invites people to foster these longlasting,
intimate relationships. I could feel what the subjects felt within these photographs,
making me empathize with them the same way I could in a moment of intimacy between me
and my family, as the feeling is mutual.