The passage into adulthood is often strange and exciting, and looking back one can never fully recall the sudden shift.  One of those changes revolves around the concept of home.  While at one point it may have been easy to place, home eventually becomes a thing of relativity.  Today I present you with work from Christiana Rifaat who begins to photograph the moment of uncomfortable familiarity within her life at home.  Her work speaks toward the urge to hold on, and the transitions that are inevitable upon age.  Once removed, Christiana finds sight in documenting the vernacular lifestyle of her mother and sibling, while revealing the new truth to what home means for herself.

Christiana Rifaat graduated in 2013 from the New England School of Photography in Boston with Portfolio Honors for her work in both Fine Art & Architectural Photography. Images from So It Goes  have been featured in exhibitions at the Photographic Resource Center & Garner Center in Boston as well as Photo Place Gallery in Vermont. At the moment, So It Goes is comprised of twenty images but ultimately the series is considered to be open ended and ever expanding. She can’t be certain but it is anticipate Christiana will continue to make this work throughout her life.

So It Goes

For as long as I can remember my mother has made a habit of making momentary habitats; an isolating custom intensifying our families dependency for one another and fixing us to the spaces we so briefly occupy. Throughout the last year I chose to photograph my mother and younger brother as they situated themselves in yet another home, this at a crucial time when I stopped proclaiming their home my own. The work includes both found and constructed images, a combination of scenes I bear witness to during my trips, as well as projections of what I assume occurs in my absence. Emotional and physical distance in the imagery represents my growing disconnects from both place and people and essentially my mourning for passing time. For my family the series embodies our ever-recurring tendency to discard potential and resolve to destructive internalization, a process that continues to hinder our lives. The project bears a personal significance but ultimately my aim is to make honest photographs that communicate beyond my subjective experience.