Artist's Statement

Sam Finegold

6x7 and 35mm color film. 8x10 and 16x20 inkjet prints

Images of adoptive families widely depict adoptees in their early stages of childhood. But what do these families look like when those children grow up? How has their understanding of adoption impacted their identities? My current project, “30k, Golden”, grapples with these questions while exploring my own family. The resulting collection of photographs navigate the complexities that are woven into adoption. Parsing through elements of love, loss, and lineage, this project attempts to explore facets of adoption that aren’t often acknowledged or shown through widespread photographs. In doing so, I explore themes of separation and unification, loss and joy- all of which contribute to the conflicting effect that adoption has on families. While this project originates from a personal place, I ultimately aim to ask larger questions about family. What does a family look like? How do we start a family? How do we preserve one?