Interview with Rafael Goldchain

Self-Portrait as Doña Balbina Baumfeld Szpiegel de Rubinstein
b. Ostrowiec, Poland, 1903
d. Santiago de Chile, 1964

Name: Rafael Goldchain
Birthday: 21.12.53
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario
Marital status: Married
Upcoming Projects or Shows: Show in Paris, France
Links: zonezero.com
Favorite part of living in Canada: A gentle compassionate tolerant society (for the most part), and a spectacular geography.
Favorite television shows: None
Guilty pleasure: Chocolate
Last book read: The Sum of the Days (Isabel Allende)

Self-Portrait as David Ryten
b. Ustilug, Ukraine, 1845
d. Poland, early 1900's.

What are some of the questions that prompted this project?
How do you visually articulate cultural hybridity? How do history and memory produce images that are foundational in a person's identity? How do I construct a firm sense of identity for my young son, based on many aspects, one of which most importantly being family history?

Looking at the photographs, it was nearly impossible for me to get my head around that fact that it is the same person in each image, how did  you transform yourself so completely?
Starting with conventional photographic and theatrical tropes. Makeup, wardrobe, props, lighting, posing, performance, followed by slight to extensive digital retouching.
 

Self-Portrait as Don Marcos José Goldchain Liberman (older)
b. Warszawa, Poland 1902
d. Santiago de Chile, 1959

What was the process like of gathering all of the fragments of actual history leading to the creation of the photographs?
It continues to this very day. Collecting family photos from far flung relatives as well as from close family, asking relatives for their stories over and over again hoping for revealing details to emerge. Asking questions that would elicit new information from people. Looking at Eastern European Jewish history for context (I have a very long way to go in the area. My relative Jacob Ryten is the expert.) Finally, exploring my own memory, situating myself in the lives of relatives at various points in their lives and trying to see the world the way they saw it. Asking many more questions than there are answers for.

Self-Portrait as Don Moises Rubinstein Krongold
b. Ostrowiec, Poland, 1902
d. Cuernavaca, México, 1980

The title of your new book is I Am My Family, evokes something I think we've all sighed to ourselves when we realize that our we've unintentionally reenacted an embarassing family behavior, but in your book you are actually using your body to re-create a variety of family members.  How has the physical embodiment of these people created a different type of memory or relationship with your family and ancestors?
It has created a new layer of memory which helps me connect with them for they have been collaborators in my artistic work. They haunt the photographs and are part of my present as embodied in my photographic performances. The act of inserting myself in my history stages my claim to that history and to being rooted in a long and diverse line of people, as well as to a photographic lineage of portraiture.

 

Self-Portrait as Naftuli Goldszajn
b. Krasnik, Poland, early 1800's
d. Krasnik, Poland, late 1800's

How do you see your specific family story relating to the larger public story of Jewish history?
It reflects a specific evolution from tradition to modernity, from Europe to Latin America, from orthodoxy to secularism, etc.

Do you see the specific evolution of your family reflected in other family narratives, both Jewish and non-Jewish?
Yes, many families have been subject to hardship. persecution, genocide, cultural and geographic displacement, fragmentation, oblivion, etc. Canada, specifically Toronto is the home of people from allover the world who have taken refuge here. For example those from Chile, my country of birth and upbringing, who came here after being imprisoned and tortured, and who have rebuilt their lives here, some always hoping to go back. Those who have gone back after decades have sometimes often have left their Canadian born and raised adult children here, thus fragmenting their families and introducing cultural and geographic fractures into their histories. The grandchildren may not even speak Spanish, thus limiting communication with their family remaining in Chile. Like those from Chile there are many other people in Toronto whose lives have been marked by historical processes similar to those that have marked my family.

Self-Portrait as Doña Reizl Goldszajn Rozenfeld
b. Poland, 1905
d. Buenos Aires, Argentina 1975

 You mention this project has shifted your family memories, can you talk a bit more about what it means to you to "lay claim to your history"?
Before I say that I been working on laying claim to my history I have should say that I have been trying to piece together that history. Whereas fragments of my family history have been compiled by others, I have tried to assemble the largest archive of genealogical relations as well as stories attached to specific people. In doing this my whole vision of my family has been transformed from what it has been since my youth. Coming into the possession of this information and supplying it to interested family members has made me into the custodian of family genealogy. Beyond this, I feel that investing imaginatively into the family story and transforming it into an artistic work is a way of laying claim to it.
 

Self-Portrait as Doña Aida Precelman Ryten de Goldchain
b. Warsaw, Poland, 1902
d. Southfield, Michigan, United States, 1986

How do you think about the tension between similarity and difference in the group of images, and is there some parallel that you were trying to make to family and relationships?

I think that when we look at our family photographs we seek to recognize ourselves in the likenesses of familial others. In a sense these function as self-portraits of us in that they reflect back to us aspects of ourselves. On the other side, our portrait photographs also contain the likenesses of all those to whom we are genetically linked, they are haunted by our ancestors. I did not set out to produce this effect in my body of work, it is something that emerged as I worked.

Self-Portrait as Leizer Goldszajn
b. Poland, 1880's
d. Poland, early 1940

I am continually struck in looking at the photographs in the theatricality of the images, and the way they seem so fully realized, even when caught just for the single moment. You mention the deep process of transformation, both physical and intellectual, can you share more about that process and some of the specific family members that have remained with you?

In making the photographs I worked out of the discipline of photography, particularly portrait photography. The process of constructing a strong and meaningful portrayal is as much theatrical as it is a product of careful work with light, camera position, subject pose, and ultimately the interaction between subject and photographer that creates the "moment." There is no doubt that the longing for connection with those that came before me informs the work, it is an underlying fabric that gives the work an emotional tone. Knowing histories of real ancestors, or inventing ancestors out of a desire to enlarge my "family" and make it more diverse and reflect the larger societies within which we lived, certainly informed my performances, but I should be honest and say that when working in the studio I was most of all a photographer producing strong portrait photographs. I am particularly proud of my self-portrait as Pesia Krongold, and of Reizl Goldszajn, two very distinctive women, as well as my self-portrait as Naftuli Goldszajn, a very striking chicken farmer.

Self-Portrait as Motl Yosef Goldszajn Liberman
b. Warszawa, Poland 1902
d. Santiago de Chile, 1959

Has working on this project, and putting together these together into book form, shifted the work you are doing or your artistic process?

There has been an ongoing shift in my work since the middle 1990s when doing personal straight photography seemed to loose its interest for me. I eventually understood that the I could not use the language of straight photography, out there in the world, portraying people I did not know, to explore the puzzle of identity, my identity, that serves as the force fueling my artistic work. I shifted to self-portraits in the late 90's in order to work in the studio, in a more staged and conceptual manner. This led to the self-portraits in the book as I created a variety of characters out of my memory, out of history, and out of my imagination.
 

Self-Portrait as Pesia Krongold
b. Poland, 1860s
d. Poland, 1930s

What are you working on now, is there a new project that is in the pipeline?

I am taking a break. New projects have not taken form yet. Take a rain cheque.