Maria kukhareva

In the third of series of guest blogs Maria Kukhareva, MBA Marketing 2003, writes about her photographic exhibition, “Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons”, which looks at ten families from Luton and Bedfordshire.

“This is my first exhibition of this kind, and I am very pleased with it. The best thing was meeting the people who agreed to participate, and sharing good moments with them by being there and capturing that day for them. Although it’s not been without its slight difficulties. Finding a day when someone would have all their family round, and they would be happy to be photographed, is not something all of us do a lot these days, it seems! And this was one of the points I wanted to make through this project.

“Someone said, this is a very unusual idea, to photograph generations of men and women, and present it in this way… I suppose the idea for the exhibition was inspired by being away from home and loved ones and fascination with large families with strong ties. I photographed generations of women and men in and around Luton, aiming to capture the bond between generations, as well as this intrinsic energy that seems to surround the family members if it’s just “girls” or “boys” getting together.”

“The understanding of where you come from, the explanation of who you are and why you are, I suppose, and what comes after you – I find this fascinating. And photographing three generations of men or women is one way of showing it. The feedback that I had so far shows that this is still a much cherished value, even though we are not in the Victorian times anymore and Jeremy Kyle’s show suggests that the family as a social unit has definitely moved on since!”

You can see an online version of the exhibition as well as some of her other work.