Margaret Stratton

Inventory of My Mother’s House

February 1, 2007 - February 24, 2007

Margaret Stratton’s Inventory of My Mother’s House is a photographic installation of the objects in the house where she spent her childhood. As a group these images reflect her parents’ willingness to consume the abundant products that symbolized the good life in the fifties and sixties. Exhibited in grids to allow expanded dialogue within each piece, the photographs also reflect the ease with which once-treasured things, prized possessions that signified home, pass into obsolescence—a familial treasure-trove of postindustrial kitsch. Widely exhibited, Stratton has engaged with the poetics and politics of history and legacy, and with technology’s effect on the transmission of violence, loss and absence. Through this process she has created a diverse body of work for which she has been awarded five National Endowment for the Arts Awards in three categories.