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Mom Spends 17 Years Documenting Her Son Growing Up, And The Result Is Truly Powerful (10 Pics)
Internationally renowned photographer Annie Wang, from Taipei City, Taiwan, decided early on that the stereotypical image of a single mother and child wasn’t going to work for her. “My artistic strategies are based on self-representation,” Annie told Bored Panda. “In the world of mothers where everything is hidden, the best way to speak out is through the strategy of self-representation, to express various parts of the self. I, as a woman and a single mom, have tried to actively create my own self, instead of being passively interpreted by a male artist in family portraits, as is traditional.”
She sees motherhood as a long and complex journey, one that needn’t be solely about sacrifice and selflessness. She sees parallels between motherhood and her work as an artist, creating a new family tradition and nurturing it through various stages of existence. “The Mother is like an artist doing her work while calling upon her own wisdom,” she explains. “The Mother not only creates life but also creates continually a continuous and fluid matrix of experience between Mother and Child.”
Her series ‘The Mother As A Creator‘ is an attempt to represent the fusion of artist and mother, portraying her and her son in various layers as he grows up. “Here I take a family photo each year of my son and myself, and then the next year, take another image of us in front of the previous picture,” she explains. “Therefore, different layers of my son and I emerge on the same surface after a lengthy accumulation of detail and texture. Different stages of my son and I are overlaid, and from the different mom and children photography pieces, we have created a dialogue with each other in this dimension upon compressed dimension. From within these dimensions will emerge a new depiction/visualization of Motherhood.”
The results are incredible and have touched many hearts around the world. Her now 18-year-old son is proud and happy to have grown together with his mother’s incredible art, and will continue to do so in the future! Scroll down below to check them out for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments!
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2001 – The day before I was due to give birth
Image credits: Annie Wang
2002 – Pressing the camera shutter together
Image credits: Annie Wang
2003 – My son’s leg was in plaster
Image credits: Annie Wang
2004 – Celebrating Christmas
Image credits: Annie Wang
2005 – Setting up the exhibition
Image credits: Annie Wang
2006 – Working hard
Image credits: Annie Wang
2010 – Moving and uncertain
Image credits: Annie Wang
2011 – Making dreams
Image credits: Annie Wang
2014 – At the same height
Image credits: Annie Wang
2018 – Arguing for freedom
Image credits: Annie Wang
Image credits: Annie Wang
Image credits: Annie Wang
Here’s what people had to say about the powerful photo series
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