Join us at H&H Books on February 20 at 7 PM for a reading and conversation about Mother Archive: A Dominican Family Memoir, the debut image-text memoir by writer and photographer Erika Morillo. Erika will be in conversation with Philly-based artist and writer Irit Reinheimer and discuss the use of photography to understand mothering, memory, and identity in the context of the Dominican-American immigrant experience.
Signed copies of the book will be available at the event and are available to preorder on H&H’s website. This event is free, and registration is encouraged.
About the Book: A family murder kept secret, the mysterious disappearance of her father, the systematic erasing of family photographs, a turbulent relationship with her mother, layers of trauma and abuse: In Mother Archive, Erika Morillo reconciles these demons of her past by searching for and seeking out the roots of her family. Intertwining memories with archival family photographs, news clippings, film stills, and artistic images, she revisits her childhood growing up in the Dominican Republic, a place and time riddled with a history of violence and a tradition of erasure. Spanning three generations across three different countries, this memoir works as a map in which the author traces incidents in her family history to help her understand herself and her own experience as a mother.
About the Authors:
Erika Morillo is a writer and photographer born and raised in the Dominican Republic and based in Jersey City. Her work focuses on family narratives, identity, and the possibilities of image-text publications. Her photographs have been published and exhibited nationally and internationally and her photobooks are in the collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art Library and The International Center of Photography Library. She holds an MA in sociology from The New School for Social Research and an MFA from Image Text Ithaca. Instagram: @erikamorillo
Irit Reinheimer is an artist and writer based in Philadelphia. Irit’s films, Young, Jewish and Left, How the Bridge Works, I Told Her This Was Home, and Of Origin, have screened nationally and internationally. Push the Water is her first book and one of several pieces she worked on as a student at the Image Text MFA program at Ithaca College. Beyond her artistic practices, Irit has worked for over a decade in communications for community-based projects and organizations focused on social change. She is also a long-time member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Instagram: @apartment2f
