This year at Norwich Theatre, our Creative Matters season, The Shape of Family, explores the diverse tapestry of family life through a mixture of performances, film, workshops, and art. To celebrate the season, we are hosting a free art exhibition, Back Stories (13 – 30 May), by local artist Julia Cameron. We sat down with Julia to talk about breathing new life into her family albums and giving us a stunning glimpse into one family’s history.
Can you tell us a little about yourself and the exhibition Back Stories?
Photography has been a part of my life since my school days. I started by making images with film, but as technology advanced, I moved to digital cameras. The pieces you see in this exhibition are only possible because of digital photographic techniques. I print the images on voile, a transparent fabric, which allows them to drift in the breeze and gives them a somewhat ghostly quality.
What inspired you to make the piece?
When my elderly father moved to a care home, I was the one who had to clear out his house. In a cupboard, I discovered a box filled with family letters, documents, and photographs that I had never seen before. I felt quite emotional; a sudden, overwhelming connection washed over me as I looked at these family members, many of whom had passed away before I was even born. Over many months, I photographed these items, wanting to preserve them digitally on my computer. This newfound connection to my past relatives is what inspired the name of this project: Back Stories.
How did you come up with the idea for Back Stories?
Initially, I focused on individual photographs, experimenting with different creative ways to interpret them, including printing them in very large formats.
Then, a distant cousin heard about my project and reached out. He offered me photographs he had taken on his phone of Victorian studio portraits of my great and two-times great-grandparents’ generation. These photographs were found in the Cameron family album. This sparked a journey of discovery as we used an ancestry research platform to learn as much as we could about their backgrounds. It was fascinating to finally put faces, places, and dates to the names on our family tree.
Did you discover anything about your own family while in the process?
We uncovered some interesting and, at times, shocking facts. We learned that some of our family – my great-grandfather, his wife, and their six children – were placed in a concentration camp during the Boer War because they were considered Boer sympathisers. They were only released after suffering from malnutrition, sickness, and living in barbaric conditions.
Tell us about the photos that are displayed at Norwich Theatre.
The set of photographs displayed in the Long Bar features female relatives found in the Cameron family album.
The set in Stage Two focuses on images of my father, Hugh. These photographs span from his childhood in the 1920s to his adulthood. They also offer a glimpse into the beginnings of amateur photography within our family, as many of these early pictures were taken by his father, Harry.
What do you hope people feel when looking at your work?
It’s my hope that these pictures will inspire others to delve into their own family histories and to record their lives. Family photographs, I believe, become a living form of history.
Back Stories is on between 13 and 30 May and is completely free to explore with no need to book. Head here for more information about Creative Matters: The Shape of Family.
