Hundreds of books in the store deal with the idea of family in some capacity – collected here is a sampling of titles that are explicit in their intention to examine these relationships, some of the most fraught, complicated, and meaningful in our lives.

Some of the artists featured here have taken a scientific approach to their projects, reproducing images and data that at first glance could be confused with those found in a medical report. In Heredity Studies, Athena Tacha photographs hands, feet, ears, and profiles of nuclear family members, celebrating the similarities and differences within the unit. In Report, David Schultz reproduces his “genetic and non-identifying social history report”, a detailed history of his birth and subsequent adoption compiled by Lutheran Social Services after his request to locate his biological mother.

Others artists featured here have taken a less structured and more explicity emotional angle, such as Steve Girard’s Drawings 2 Kill Your Parents 2 (title says it all), and Claude Leveque’s Valstar, composed of altered images of children and adults going about their daily rituals interspersed with text excerpted from French crime blotters, describing the torture of children by parents and guardians.