Leilani Wertens was born in Orange, California in 1985. She is currently attending Columbia College in Chicago working on her MFA in Photography. This work is from the project, Forget Me Not, in which she writes,’The setting for this project ranges from turn-of-the-century brownstones to 1950s bungalows, but they housed a generation that was less transitory. Unlike today, where on average families move at least every 10 years, individuals of this era spent their entire adult lives in one home. There’s a sense of permanence to the spaces I photograph, many of their previous owners were first-time home buyers, who took pride in where they lived. In my exploration of the basements and attics of homes across Chicago and its suburbs, I’ve discovered interiors that have remained unchanged for decades; here several generations entertained at Tiki bars, wallpapered the ceiling of their bathrooms and selected kitchen design schemes of orange and avocado green. The experience of these settings are mediated through memory—of childhood or visits to grandma’s—and through pop culture, reruns of T.V. shows like I Love Lucy and The Brady Bunch. Domestic settings, unlike idealized Hollywood sets that never age, experience the ravages of day-to-day life. The worn surfaces and fading of the once vibrant colors reference the aging of the generation and allude to a presence now absent from these rooms’.
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