This thesis explores the life and work of American Photographer and Filmmaker Nan Goldin as she navigated the ups and downs of her everyday life, a lifelong struggle with addiction, and survived the height of the AIDS Epidemic in New York City. Her work is celebrated for its pioneering every day, snapshot style. She is known for persuasive, colourful images grounded in an examination of the human experience.
In this thesis, her work is examined through a sequence of four photographs featuring the Mueller Family. Cookie Muller was a writer and personality of the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1980s, and a close friend of Goldin’s. The sequence includes photographs spanning 25 years and takes us through major life events including finding love, marriage, illness and death. Goldin is particularly skilled at honouring the complexity of her subject’s lives in her photography. For this reason, her work is uniquely positioned to expose our inclinations towards oversimplified stories when looking at moments in history, which she does once again in this sequence with regard to the AIDS Epidemic’s height in 1980s and 1990s America.