Rachel Echenberg’s video series Conversations with my Family, attempts to gage the scale, weight, form and force of intimate interactions. This project measures familial connections against a variety of landscapes. The bodies create a disruptive presence within each natural setting, fluctuating our sense of time and scale. Echenberg presents one-to-one performances with her immediate family members. Each non-verbal conversation requires endurance and patience to structure a portrait of the relationship.

In Conversation with my Husband, two bodies run at each other in a vast empty landscape. At the point of embrace/collision they disappear, leaving only their cloud of dust. The landscape remains unchanged.

In Conversation with my Adult Daughter, a mother cradles her adult child surrounded by tall trees in a forest. The daughter rests in complete trust as her weight becomes difficult to sustain.

In Conversation with my Teenager, parent and child face each other from two sides of a gushing river. They are tied together by a rope that crosses over the water. The line connecting them is fragile within the vast landscape, forcing them to stay in perpetual equilibrium.

In Conversation with my Mother (and her mother, and her mother and her mother...), the synchronized movement of mother and daughter happens in separate outdoor spaces. The action brings hands to face to explore the form and surface of the jaw, the cheekbones, the skin, the nose, the eyes, the ears, the neck, the skull, etc. Through this solitary ritual they are connected to each other and the matrilineal line that precedes them.


All titles are availble as a series and single screening/installtion