Reframing the Past (1984-1994) could also be titled Re-Reading the Family Album. From 1984 to 1994, Sligh’s work centered on a re-investigation and re-evaluation of her family’s photo album. Growing up in the blue collar, black neighborhood of Halls Hill in Arlington, Virginia in the 1950’s, keeping up the family album was something the artist took great pride in. Not realizing that her early family album project was created through the lens of a stereotypical white American family, she saw the project as making a record of positive images of her black family.
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