Origin Stories

My parents, older sister and I immigrated to the US when I was an infant. Growing up far away from extended family, I missed what I imagined to be the grounding force of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents around me.

My parents rarely spoke of their lives in Belgium in the 1940s – 1960s. Eventually I showed my mother a family portrait from her childhood, and asked, “What do you see?” She began to tell me an intergenerational story of feuds over money, alcoholism, infidelity, child abandonment, jealousy, and domestic abuse. This ongoing multimedia series is my interpretation of fragments of family history, primarily as experienced by girls and women.

Artist bio

Anne Piessens is a Boston-based fine art photographer whose work reimagines family history and our relationship with the natural world. Her current series, Origin Stories, brings elements of magical realism into hand-collaged fragments of family portraits. Past projects include Meliorations, which imagines ways to heal damaged landscapes, and In the Middle of Something, a portrait series about the tween years.

Visit the Griffin

The Griffin Museum of Photography is open Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday.

General admission is $9 for adults; $5 for seniors. Members and children under 12 are admitted free. Admission is free to all every Thursday, 2 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 781.729.1158, or visit www.griffinmuseum.org.

About the Griffin Museum

The Griffin Museum of Photography was founded in 1992 to provide a forum for the exhibition of both historic and contemporary photography. The Museum houses three galleries dedicated solely to the exploration of photographic arts: The Main Gallery, which features rotating exhibits from some of the world’s leading photographers, the Atelier Gallery and Griffin Gallery dedicated to showcasing the works of prominent, up-and-coming artists. The Griffin is also home to the extensive archives of museum founder and world-renowned photojournalist Arthur Griffin. The Griffin Museum of Photography also maintains 2 additional satellite galleries: Lafayette City Center Passageway in Boston Downtown Crossing, in Winchester @WinCam at Winchester Community Access and Media. For more on the Griffin Museum of Photography, visit www.griffinmuseum.org.

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