What Does Your Family Look Like?

This is the question on the minds of participants in the Newhouse School’s project Family. Life. So far, the project comprises over 2,000 photos, by students from 34 schools in 14 countries. The Polarr team spoke with Director Andrea Wise about the project’s origins and challenges. If you haven’t already, we suggest heading over to Family. Life.’s website — it’s positively labyrinthine and well worth getting lost in.

Emily: After clicking around the website, the scope of the project seems enormous. Can you please describe its concept for our readers?

Andrea: The concept of “Family. Life.” was to revisit Edward Steichen’s 1955 photography project “The Family of Man” in a contemporary way — both in terms of how to interpret “family,” as well as in terms of how to tell those stories.