Robert Frankle

Description

This video installation recounts the life of Rebecca, a baby girl born HIV positive in the early 1990s. She was abandoned by her parents because of their health and personal issues and adopted by foster parents. Her foster parents recount her life and death from AIDS. Through their words, the viewer glimpses not only Rebecca's life, but also how she touched and transformed her foster parents' lives. In terms of the ongoing challenges towards achieving racial integration in the US, it is far from unimportant that Rebecca was African-American and her foster parents White. As a result, the story becomes far more than a story about AIDS or a portrait of Rebecca.

The work does not attempt to present of a point of view or construct a narrative beyond the words of Rebecca's foster parents. The objective is not to create a documentary. The work's focus is Rebecca and so principally displays her image. When her parents speak about her, she is shown. On the other hand, when her parents discuss personal experiences related to her, they are shown speaking. During the video, the parents explain the significance of the images used.

The work is presented as an installation with two channels, one with Rebecca's foster father and the other with her foster mother. In this way, the same story is recounted twice, but from different perspectives allowing the viewer to reflect on how the viewpoint of the father and that of the mother are similar and how they are different. The two channels are positioned adjacent to one another so as to be in dialogue with each other, while permitting the viewer to clearly listen to each one individually.