Crowded House

Rachel Elise Thomas

In June of 1993, my family and I moved from our home on the eastside of Detroit to the sprawling, spacious suburbs of Southfield, a location where mid-century modern homes are dominant, and where the Black residents would eventually become the dominant percentage. Over the years, our family home became the source of many celebrations, laughter, sibling rivalry, disagreements, and a place of mourning. A myriad of emotions attached to complicated memories of the past–inspiring me to create the photography series, Crowded House. 

Crowded House is a visual continuation that documents and preserves my family history in a home where I’ve lived for most of my life. It was important that I give these old photographs a new existence, because for so long, me and my family have archived these photographs in various photo albums and shoe boxes, but unfortunately, many of them became forgotten. I referred to my background in traditional collage making to help guide me in the creative process. Using a digital projector, I projected the images onto the spaces/objects/rooms where each picture was initially taken. Like collage, these memories perpetually overlap, and depending on the image’s placement, the composition changes, and so does its narrative.

When I moved the projector around a room, I watched in awe as the images would contort and take on a life of their own. As the creator, I conjured another dimension–a portal in time, and depending on the image I used to project, it evoked a very specific, detailed memory from my past. The first image I wanted to use was of me from the fall of 2005 when I was a seventeen-year-old senior in high school. It was the night of the homecoming dance, and in the picture I’m in the living room, standing next to the piano with a big smile and a mouth full of braces, standing amongst all the Black art and artifacts which complimented my evening attire: my jet black hair, shiny, straightened and curled to perfection, my black and sparkly spaghetti strap party dress with the matching shawl, paired with beauty supply jewelry (cubic zirconia chandelier earrings and tennis bracelet) that impressively twinkled–captured using the built-in flash on a disposable camera. Seeing myself stand awkwardly in my 3-inch T-strap plexiglass heels, I am reminded that back then, I could not walk in heels properly and didn’t care for them, but wanted to try for that special night. After photographing the projection, I stepped away from my tripod in awe–watching the seventeen-year-old version of myself standing right before me, and in a way, breaking the fourth wall as the image of myself stares back at the 34-year-old version of me. It was eerie, but also very cathartic. I sat in the dark, with only the light from the projector to illuminate the room and admired the younger version of myself, while also appreciating the current version.

I have a deep, unexplainable desire to honor my past. Feeling creatively guided by an ancestral force much bigger than me, I was not satisfied until this project was underway and the ideation gradually came to fruition. I am collaborating with memory, a spirit, and my environment––by acknowledging my past, I unintentionally created personal and familial altars. This series serves as a duality of existence, there is a continuum in these spaces. How many times has my family sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to one another at the kitchen table while each person’s favorite desert was present? –where countless, intimate conversations also took place? So many, who knows.

In the summer of 2017, Boxer, our cat, and my best friend of fifteen years was euthanized in our home. My immediate family and I watched him take his last breath in the family room as the veterinarian helped make his transition. We held the funeral in the backyard–the grassy, unoccupied space between the shed and fence is where my dad dug the hole for burial. I chose one of our old sheets with roses printed on them to wrap his body in–the last favor for my beloved friend–I was honored. At the final resting place, I slowly poured his brother, Tony’s ashes in the same plot. Tony was euthanized and cremated a few years prior. Why keep one in an urn on the living room table and the other in the backyard–separate? Part of the same litter, they came into this world with each other, it was only befitting they be buried together. Just like any other funeral my family and I attended, we prayed, gave remarks, and comforted each other. My mom, aunt, sister, cousin, and I all watched as my dad covered their shared plot with the dry soil, parched by the summer sun. The kids next door played joyfully in their backyard without an inkling of what was going on in ours. We had an impromptu repast in the kitchen, where either brownies or cookies were made by my cousin–I don’t quite remember, all I know is that the sentiment was there, and it was felt. Walking past my living room, there were times my mom and I swore we saw an apparition of Boxer, our black and white domestic shorthair, curled up on a throw, in one of his favorite spots, where we presume he continues to spend the rest of his days, in another life. I believe that we saw him and would sense his presence in our home because he transitioned here, on our property–tying him to this house and land forever.

I created Crowded House because it challenges stereotypes about the Black experience, especially my experience of growing up in the suburbs of Southfield, Michigan, which shares part of its southern border with Detroit. The cities are close in proximity, but visually, worlds apart. Like the generous space that’s present between each house in my neighborhood, growing up in this kind of environment, your resources are plentiful, and self-reliance isn’t complicated. I have been conditioned to prefer the friendly separateness, stillness, and quite that’s involved with living in a place like this. Noticing how my environment has shaped me and how it shows up in my personality: affectionate, but conscious of the space I need–welcoming, but unless I know or trust you, keep your distance.

As I continue to work on this project, I’ve realized that placement is habitual. Like the piano that sits in the living room, and the wood paneling that has lined the family room for several years, while everything around us changes, there are certain aspects of ourselves that remain unmoved/unchanged.