The Piggyback Project consists of 28 photographs of people carrying their parents piggyback. Over the course of a few months I invited friends, family, and colleagues to come in to the studio, where we took a total of around 2,500 pictures. Of these I selected a small number that particularly moved me, and that revealed a wide array of configurations, expressions, and relationships.
These pictures are not intended as portraits -- I'm not trying to say anything in particular about the actual individuals shown here. I think of the images as more iconic, each one expressing a different blend of feelings and interactions between child and parent.
While the actual event -- child carrying parent piggyback -- was surprising and unusual to many of the people who took part, as I watched it happen it also felt somehow familiar. As children we begin carrying our parents at a very young age, and we never stop. As parents we are carried by our children, though we aren't necessarily aware of it. I enjoyed making this arrangement literal. Watching parents and children create these images, it was clear that carrying and being carried doesn't feel like, or mean, only one thing. It's rich and complicated. Thus the photographs.
David Keevil