Visions of Eden

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jan 9

What is the American dream? Photographer Ryan Frigillana reflects on this utopia documenting his family as a first-generation of Filipino immigrants in America and growing up in a strict conservative Christian environment.

Text & Photography Ryan Frigillana

Visions of Eden presents a visual account of my family’s journey as first-generation Filipino immigrants in America examined through the mythos of Christian doctrine and The American Dream.

Responding to my heavy religious upbringing and childhood experiences in assimilating, I question the veracity of these ingrained mythologies and the faulty notion of paradise. To people abroad, America is perceived as a proverbial Eden: the land of milk and honey, wealth and excess.

What is our forbidden tree? What is gained and lost in the search for prosperity?

Conceived as an experience in book form, the project weaves together original photography with appropriated imagery taken from children’s Bible-story books and ephemera from my family’s archives – snapshots, letters, and video stills – forming a window into the complex experience of faith, both spiritual and ideological.

“A meditation on familial identity, religion, death, legacy, and false promise – this hybrid ‘portrait’ contemplates past and present, and both the uncertainty and hope of our desired futures.”

About Ryan

Ryan Frigillana (he/him), b. Iligan City, Philippines, is a New York-based visual artist working with photography and image archives. His practice reflects on the construction of familial identity, history, and home as a first-generation American.

Frigillana is the author of two monographs: Visions of Eden (self-published, 2020) and The Weight of Slumber (Penumbra Foundation, 2021). His work has been featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Humble Arts Foundation, Booooooom, Palm Studios, Paper Journal, and Pomegranate Press among others. Select awards include a MUUS Collection/Penumbra Foundation Risograph Print and Publication Residency and the NYFA/JGS Fellowship for Photography.

To see more of his work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram

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Visions of Eden

What is the American dream? Photographer Ryan Frigillana reflects on this utopia documenting his family as a first-generation of Filipino immigrants in America and growing up in a strict conservative Christian environment.

“A meditation on familial identity, religion, death, legacy, and false promise – this hybrid ‘portrait’ contemplates past and present, and both the uncertainty and hope of our desired futures.”

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