Visions of Eden (2nd Edition)
Visions of Eden (2nd Edition)
Visions of Eden presents a visual account of my family’s journey as first-generation Filipino immigrants in America examined through the mythological lens of Christian doctrine and The American Dream.
Responding to my heavy religious upbringing and childhood experiences in assimilating, I question the veracity of these ingrained mythologies and the faulty notion of paradise. To people abroad, America is painted as a proverbial Eden: the land of milk and honey, wealth and excess. What is our forbidden tree? What is gained and lost in the search for prosperity? Conceived as an experience in book form, the project weaves together original photography with appropriated imagery taken from children’s Bible-story books and ephemera from my own family’s archives—snapshots, letters, and video stills—forming a window into the complex experience of faith, both spiritual and ideological.
A meditation on familial identity, religion, death, legacy, and false promise—this hybrid ‘portrait’ contemplates past and present, and both the uncertainty and hope of our desired futures.
Visions of Eden
© Ryan Frigillana
All images © Ryan Frigillana
Self-published: November 2020
Softcover with French flaps
8x10 in.
134 pages
1 loose insert
Second Edition of 50
ISBN: 978-0-578-74310-3
Collections:
The Getty Research Institute Library
The Morgan Library & Museum
Anacostia Community Museum Library at the Smithsonian
Hirsch Library at The Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago
Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University
Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University
Pratt Institute Libraries
Press / Features:
Cumulus Photo
Photo-Emphasis