JANET CHAN AND ZORICA PURLIJA
Re-Imagining Family
Immigrants often lose family members through wars, illnesses or migration. In this exhibition we present the process and outcomes of our collaboration in re-imagining portraits of family members who had passed away leaving no records. By using images of close relatives, we tried to recreate, using AI software and prompts, possible images of lost family members. The experience of using AI to re-create images of ancestors will be documented as part of the exhibition.
In recreating these images, we are of course working in the realm of speculation. As Rubinstein and Fisher (2013:8) suggest: “It now seems that it is the humble photographic image … that encapsulates the interlacing of physical and algorithmic attributes, aesthetic and political forms, which characterise the age of information capitalism. It seems that the digital-born image has become a hinge between these physical and digital modes of existence, combining as it does elements of familiar ocularcentric culture – with its trust and reliance on the true-to-life photograph – and algorithmic processes that problematise the presumption of an ontological connection between images and objects.”
This is a first collaboration between Janet Chan and Zorica Purlija.
We used Zorica's mother's photo as a “start image” to generate her grandfather's portrait. We also used Janet's brother's photo to create her father's possible image (he died when she was an infant and there's no photo of him available). Finally we used a photo of Janet, her sister Mary and two friends to re-imagine the two sisters who died of malaria during the war.
Zorica used Loveart and recreate.ai after trying several other programs and Janet used Deep Dream Generator with prompts (which can be obtained from the artists). Zorica was able to verify the likeness of her grandfather through her mother. Janet had some idea of her father’s feature from seeing an old photograph (which has been lost) and is not able to verify the likeness of her sisters because they died very young and there are no surviving relatives who can help.
Both artists are aware of the dangers of using AI for predictive purposes, but seeing these imagined images of loved ones provided some degree of comfort from the grief of not having pictures of them. As Pillay (2025) suggests, “There may be real therapeutic and emotional value in being able to reconnect and potentially achieve closure with lost loved ones” even though there is a risk that we may be “left vulnerable to life’s unexpected challenges” if we relied on such “digital reincarnates”.
References:
Rubinstein, Daniel and Andy Fisher (2013) Introduction. In Rubinstein et al. (eds. 2013)On the Verge of Photography. ARTicle Press, Birmingham.
Pillay, Tharin (2025) ‘The Dead Have Never Been This Talkative’: The Rise of AI Resurrection. Time. 28 June 2025.
ARTISTS
Janet Chan is a multidisciplinary artist, poet and an award-winning researcher in criminology. She has an MFA from UNSW (College of Fine Arts) on drawing and painting, a Grad Cert in Media Arts & Production from UTS, with 3 exhibitions in AIRspace since 2020, a First Draft online exhibition Soft Power, plus a solo and a group exhibition in Tilburg, the Netherlands. She has been an artist-in-residence at Bundanon, NSW; Tilburg; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Zorica Purlija is a fine art photographer. She has completed a Masters of Art in Digital Media, UNSW Art & Design, Sydney; a Portrait Summer Course, National Art School; an Associate Diploma of Visual Arts, Major in Photography with Distinction, University of Western Sydney. She has had 10 solo shows with Sara Roney Gallery and Stanley Street Gallery. She has been a finalist in the FishersGhost Award 2024, Gosford Art Prize (2023), the National Photographic Portrait Prize (2010, 2009, 2008),HeadOn Portrait Prize (2022), the Ravenswood Women's Art Prize (2020), the Fisher Ghost Art Award (2017),the MAMA Photography Prize (2016), the Winifred Bowness Award (2014), the Ulrick Award (2011)and theOlive Cotton Award (2009). She has exhibited in New York, Zurich and Venice.
