A man crouches in despair. His back is hunched and he is facing down, leaning over an empty bottle. His features are unidentifiable and his body is frail as he struggles to support himself on impossibly spindly legs, visible through his trousers. It’s an image of hardship, heightened by the four infants who stand around him, waiting. They look stoic, yet you can sense their vulnerability. What does he have to give?
I saw this installation – called Untitled (Possil, At Last) – at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge last week. It’s by the Northern Ireland-born artist Cathy Wilkes and is part of Real Families: Stories of Change, an exhibition exploring the dynamics of family life. This particular work was the entire show’s inspiration. Its curator Susan Golombok, a family psychologist, saw it at Tate Liverpool in 2015, having slipped out of a conference. Golombok was stunned by its emotive power, astonished that one scene seemed able to sum up years of her research.
