Caroline Mackenzie (UK) puts into visual story form her discovery of being a Replacement Child. The series describes both the symptoms on the surface and the unexpected solutions that arose spontaneously and became part of the healing process.
You can view her work here.
In her book Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson, art historian Suzaan Boettger shows how a contemporary artist manifests the conflicts and identity confusion of being thought of as a surrogate. The fact that Smithson’s predecessor as his parents’ only child, a son, died at nine-and-a-half, made it especially tough. And that child’s dying was a horrific process of deterioration to experience as well as witness. Robert Smithson grew up to paint bloody crucifixions and all manner of art in blood red and to enigmatically claim, “You don’t have to have existence to exist.” For him and other replacements – too true! Read her blog about Smithson here.
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