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Alex Davern |
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Abbey MacDonald – 1968, Here and Now
Kindled by my passion for further research into the transient nature of identity came this portrait of my father, Alex MacDonald. I have a photograph of my father, his passport photo, which was taken just before he immigrated to Australia from Scotland in 1968. This grainy image of my father always has, and continues to perplex me. The photograph itself held many fascinating images for me when I was younger. I imagined a spy, an adventurer, a gangster, or sometimes I could catch the fleeting glimpse of a suave criminal in the photo. But as I grew and began to ask questions, the photograph began to conjure different meanings and images for me. A lost boy. Bravado. Fear of the unknown. The need for a clean slate. Based upon a 39-year-old image which shows my father the very age I am now, I considered the perceptions of my own identity as I represented his. I could see a clean slate within my father’s image, ready and eager to be coloured, marked and shaped by the experiences of a new life in a new place. 1968, Here and Now portrays Alex MacDonald’s image as it has been perceived and shaped by my own experience of being his daughter, influenced by the allure of a tiny, 39-year-old, ragged black and white photograph and the curiousness and understanding of 23 years of living and learning from a man that I have come to see so much of myself in. A man who has guided me safely to here and now, having now reached the very age at which he made a life-changing decision to move away from everything he knew. Do I feel compelled to do the same?
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