I have discussed dire circumstances at hospitals in Honduras in my previous posts. I want to take a moment and reflect on the beautiful people and culture of Honduras. I had the pleasure visiting this wonderful country shortly after a coup and during the Independence Day Celebrations. Nationalism was at high during that time and it was exciting to be a part of celebrations and discussions that involved a nation in transition.
Today is Giving Tuesday . I hope you’ll consider making a donation in someone’s honor as a christmas gift. Please consider this project which is very near and dear to my heart.
For many of you, I personally know what your family portraits mean to you. I have had the joy of providing you with those images and seeing your faces light up and hearing your kind words about how you treasure each moment. Yet, there are so many who will never know that joy.
So many have expressed the depth of gratitude you feel in having a beautiful portrait with a loved one who has recently passed away – capturing the ephemeral. I know that gratitude too, having loved ones pass on, but looking fondly and often at times we shared together. So many will never have this basic gift.
It would be an honor if you will consider helping me provide the gift of one family portrait to isolated and impoverished families in Honduras. Click the link to read more details. Please share this post liberally. Happy Giving Tuesday!
Finally, thank you so much for taking the time to digest this, amongst all of the adorable puppies, kittens, babies and inevitable shouting of opinions that I’m sure inundates your newsfeed.
Click on this link to read more about the project and donate with the click of a button. https://www.crowdrise.com/photographyforacause/fundraiser/kristenkidd
In my journey toward making the family portrait project in Honduras come to fruition, many shifts have developed in it’s germination (as with all things that must grow). First, the project has been retitled: Retrato/Portrait. The date of completion is Jan/Feb 2017. Thank goodness for this too, since I have a lot to prepare yet and a long way to go raising funds. Finally, a gallery has expressed interest in displaying the copies of the family portrait images in exhibition.
Today I want to share the Bio, Artist Statement and Description of Work I wrote as a proposal to the gallery. I believe that this shines such a poignant light on what it is I hope to accomplish. I want to share it as well, because as someone who has already donated or someone who may donate in the near future, I believe you deserve the same level of insight as a gallery that would host my work. Of course, having said that; click on this link if you’d like to donate with the click of a button. https://www.crowdrise.com/photographyforacause/fundraiser/kristenkidd
Lastly, I want to give special thanks so my brother, Jacob, who, with tremendous passion, has helped me vet the nuances and language of this project. Also, thanks to my husband, David, who tirelessly listens to my visions and conundrums; patiently offering advice (or not; dependent on what I need at the time).
Without further delay:
Biography
Kristen Kidd is a photographer and advocate living in Lansdale Pennsylvania. A native of rural, southern Virginia, she began photographing her family’s highly cultivated, though miniature, farm at the age of 15 when she picked up her father’s vintage Olympus. The desire to photograph flora and fauna soon gave way to an inclination toward people. Beginning with her early experiences photographing nursing home residents, with whom she volunteered and her mother worked, the desire to capture the dynamics of social complexities grew. Accordingly, Kristen has built a dual career track, on the one hand advocating for individuals with intellectual disabilities while, on the other, developing her photography skills and a rich portfolio of images of people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. Her interest in Honduras began on a volunteering expedition with the local nonprofit Mujeres Amigas Miles Apart (MAMA) Project, during which she brought her camera and captured the journey as an amateur while assisting in medical brigades and building a community center. A second trip with the same organization brought her back as a photojournalist on behalf of MAMA. In recent years Kristen has built a business that is established on the principles of embracing equality, diversity and community. These core values ground her projects in an enhanced awareness of the critical issues facing our world and, she hopes, suggest the intentional steps we can take to “be the change we wish to see in the world.”Artist’s Statement
I am given the distinct pleasure of photographing families, couples, and individuals in their greatest moments of joy. Yet, I am acutely aware that these family portraits – experiences and objects that my day-to-day work positions as basic rites of passage – are an unattainable luxury to a vast percentage of the world.
The vision for this project stems from the deep rooted memory of what it meant to the individuals and families that I photographed in Honduras. To see their faces illuminated on the tiny screen of my camera brought them such joy. They relished the confirmation that their likeness was saved in space and time. They asked for nothing in return. The joy of knowing they were preserved, somewhere, served as elation enough.
These families will never know preserving a memory of their family in a moment in time. When loved ones pass on, they strain to remember faces when we hang portraits, scroll Facebook and flip through albums. I want to consider what happens when we take an object that is intrinsically a part of our society, an icon; such as the family portrait and we place it in an environment in which it is a privilege, typically left only to the elite. I want to wrestle with what it means to the viewer who receives this image of their family juxtaposed to the viewer who receives these images to behold on display in a gallery setting. It is worth considering this because it’s good to give and because it’s good to reflect, with gratitude, on the gamut of what he have, what we take for granted and what is valued sharing in the human experience.
The family portrait, be it casual snap shot, polaroid, disposable camera or an image preserved on archival canvas, captured by the most revered photographer of our time; it is not food, water or shelter, but it is the one possession that most people agree they would consider running back into a burning building to save, once all loved ones made it out safely.Description of the work
“Retrato/Portrait” will capture what is likely to be the only portrait that these families will ever have in the remote regions of Honduras. Up to 400 families will be photographed on Fuji Film Instax 3.25”x4.4” instant film. One image will be provided to the family and second image will be retained by the photographer. The second image will be brought back, mounted and framed for a gallery exhibition.
I posted this one year ago on Giving Tuesday. My trip to Honduras is coming to fruition. I leave in a little over a month. I’m humbly asking, for what I’m excited to declare will be my final time, for a donation to this cause. You can read all about the project here and at the website where you can also, easily and conveniently, make a donation. Please share this post liberally. https://www.crowdrise.com/photographyforacause/fundraiser/kristenkidd
I hope that as you cherish your own photographic icons of you and your loved ones, you’ll consider helping others have a keep sake to remember their families.
