Little Seedling
Rachel Kahn
Little Seedling is a book that documents my four grandparents from their childhoods til their passings. The idea behind the book is to show how identity stems from family, as well as from collective memory. The book is in four main parts, one for each grandparent. The middle of the book houses two interviews about my parents’ childhoods, to show the juxtaposition between their upbringings. The purpose of the book is to understand my identity through examining this archive of photography, letters, and the memories they evoke. The right pages in the spreads showcase quotes from my grandparents, typeset in a larger size of Noe Display, to reveal their personalities, and the importance of their words. The left side of the spreads use Noe Display in a smaller type size to mirror that of storytelling and literature. The photos themselves, move throughout the grid organically, telling the visual story of each grandparent in chronological order.
Within In each chapter there are articles that have been inserted to explain subjects such as postmemory and epigenetics. I never appear as a subject in the book, to further emphasize that identity is not based upon one-dimensional physicality, but instead found in the roots and stories of one’s past. Specifically focusing on both my paternal and maternal sides, and how they contrast each other enables me to decode my own identity. This book archives these experiences, yet it also carries forgotten, emotional memories which brings life to its pages.