MoMa Experience

Millie Sialer 

Imagery, Identity and Culture 

February 21, 2020 

Response Essay to Moma 

Growing up, I was fascinated by video recorders and cameras. Entering inside the Private Lives Public Space exhibit at the MoMa felt like walking into a giant library of home videos. I was immediately excited to watch them all and analyze how they were taken, where they were taken and when they were recorded. People sometimes don’t understand the beauty of home videos. Home videos are like time capsules that can take you on a journey to past where people showed more emotion, lived experiences fully and mentally brings you into an era where neither you nor I were alive yet to live it.  

Let’s begin with the first video that captured my attention, Roy Family, California, India and Iowa 1972-77. The home video looks as if it has taken place in a classroom in a school in India. It features the Indian students participating in school activities as well as an American Family being present with the students. The mother, father, and son seemed happy and bonded with the kids. After that scene, the video shows a traditional Indian funeral where the entire community is helping dig a grave, build a stoned cross and start bringing the coffin to the location. I believe what the person behind the recording was trying to highlight how culturally different it is in India compared to California (since the title does say California, I am assuming the family is from there). The home video concentrates on cultural identity, as Judith Howard mentions in her case study about identity, people’s identity get developed based on their cultural surroundings and practices. Such as in this video, although the young American boy is being exposed to Indian cultural, his parents are influencing him to learn about other religions' practices, food, and countries for him to grow up being a cultured man.  

The next video that caught my attention was the Wise Family, Filming of Samuel R. Delany’s “Science Fiction Film in the Latter Half of the XXth Century” 1971. The video captures behind the scenes footage of a production set/film. It shows the different costumes on set and how the producers and directors are helping the main actors. The cameraman highlights how the director is working on set and perhaps he is trying to capture him in “his zone” while directing. This type of identity classification is considered to be based on career, profession, and society in the Hollywood industry. It shows how in-depth of how the director tries to lead the group of actors and tries to bring his idea to life. His identity is solely represented by his work/art Howard explains in her article how some careers are based on social status and this clearly is related to the Hollywood society.  

Finally, the last video that I was intrigued to feature on my review was the home video by Victor Ginsburg – taken in New York 1981. I was able to identify with the film because it was a location where I would also visit with my family. It features the skyline of New York City but the location is actually Liberty State Park in Jersey City. Ginsburg captures what Howard mentions in her article, about changes in ages, societies, and eras. Unlike Liberty State Park today, back in 1981, the fashion and trends were very different compared to today. You can see the difference in cars but what stands out most is extremely different are the visitors today compared to 1981. The people in the video are predominantly American – Caucasian, unlike today, where that park has visitors coming from all different parts of the world. The change in culture and society is extreme within 39 years in New York/New Jersey. You can see the Twin Towers in the background in which people relate themselves to those structures and are part of their identity due to the tragedy that traumatized many Americans.  

The exhibition was a pleasant trip back to understanding how people viewed their world

 at that moment in time.