Lauren Nakadate: Kalispell, Montana #1, from the “Relations” series, 2013, C print, 30 by 45 inches. Courtesy Leslie Tonkonow.
Laurel Nakadate continues her interest in incorporating strangers into her art but this time, instead of performing in their apartments or getting picked up by them in parking lots, she’s tracked down her distant relatives via DNA testing websites. The “Strangers and Relations” portraits-of men and women, old and young, black and (mostly) white-were shot at night using only a flashlight in cities from Portland, Ore. to Pikeville, Ky. to West PalmBeach, Fla. The purposefully amateurish staging and lighting gives the 17 photos in this series a decidedly supernatural tone, and makes you wonder how many strangers you meet might, in fact, also be relations.