Arlene Mejorado (b. Los Angeles, California, 1987)
As for many people, the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the ways Arlene Mejorado spent her time and interacted with people. Previously, Mejorado created portraits, engaging directly with her subjects. In 2020, however, she remained at home, revisiting her family pictures. By engaging with her family’s archives, the artist was able to imbue new life into these treasured objects.
Pandemic-era restrictions and closures also gave Mejorado time to drive around her native San Fernando Valley, and she took the opportunity to revisit and reconsider places from her childhood. Each space was replete with memories, forcing Mejorado to grapple with the emotions and palpable presence of each site; at the same time, she had no desire to go back to that time or into the physical place. Such encounters prompted a central question for the artist: what would it be like to bring family pictures back to their place of origin? This was the genesis of her series Breathing Exteriors: (re)Placement of Memory, 2020–21.
Mejorado reinvigorated her family photographs by enlarging the images and transforming them into banners. She then placed the banners on the outside or in the periphery of each setting. In Living Room Dancing, 2021, children dance as their grandmother watches—part of a New Year’s Eve celebration in 1995. Mejorado placed this enlarged image in the backyard of her uncle’s house, using found objects. Living Room Dancing is nostalgic, conveying a shared memory of youthful exuberance while also seeming distant and impersonal. Like many 1990s snapshots, a timestamp sits in the bottom right corner. This, coupled with the natural light dancing over the surface of the banner, reinforces the temporal nature of life.
When Mejorado was not given permission to access a particular dwelling, she placed her family images in alleyways, on fences, and even in drained swimming pools. In each instance, the full view of the site is obstructed, reflecting the way that memories are obscured and restructured over time. The series also explores and reinforces feelings of displacement. For a time in her childhood, Mejorado’s father was unhoused, and the unstable situation had a deep impact on the artist. As a child, she had to contend with questions that Mejorado still reflects upon in adulthood: how, for instance, does one make a home when the fear of losing it looms large? In this series, the familiarity of the snapshot, juxtaposed against the banality of each banner’s setting, forces a psychological examination of the impact of childhood joys and traumas.
The artist’s work blends the diaristic nature of family photographs with hindsight and self-reflection to explore home as both a physical and emotional space. Mejorado encourages a close examination of deeply personal narratives, cultural reflections, and intimate memories while challenging our perceptions about where truthfulness lies within an image. Is it in the documentation of a singular moment in time, or in the reframing of that memory through growth and contemplation? Or, are both simultaneously true?
Arlene Mejorado, Living Room Dancing, 2021. Inkjet print. 26 × 24 inches. Arlene Mejorado. © Arlene Mejorado