In 2013, I came across an unassuming lot of exposed but undeveloped film from an abandoned storage locker in Fontana, California. I decided to dedicate myself to working with these potential photographs without any information as to what I would find.I had the film developed the day I received it and was confronted with a mass archive of other people's photographs that had become my own. The photographs appeared to have been created by several different authors and were taken in various regions throughout the United States. There were pictures of a kindergarten graduation, graffiti bombing on Venice Beach, Mormon Church gatherings, and road trips via Amtrak and Greyhound. They could only really be connected by the fact that they were reclaimed from the same storage facility and that they ended up in my possession.
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With Fontana, California, USA, I was presented with an opportunity to explore the ways in which our personal histories influence how we engage with photography. The found film offered an opportunity to subvert my traditional role as image-maker and instead act as a synthesizer of content that had been pre-produced. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, or documentary and narrative, these personal pictures reflected the duality of family life through a variety of moments that could be interpreted as both devastating and celebratory.Fontana, California, USA is currently on view at Galerie Occurrence in Montreal until March 5, 2016.Follow Coey on Instagram.
