Mark Laita: Created Equal

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Inhabitants in the Whitaker neighbourhood are so defensive of the family that they would not permit anybody to visit and manipulate them.

However, recent studies have revealed that their parents were cousins and not brother and sister as was earlier believed. By extracting them from their typical surroundings, Laita asserts the idea that we are all equal and interchangeable. If you are interested in interviewing with the Whittaker family, you better talk to the neighbours and the local authority.

After earning a degree in photography from Columbia College and the University of Illinois/Chicago Mark built a successful commercial photography business with studios in Los Angeles and New York City. But of course, it is not an isolated case as there is a high probability that other undocumented families are facing a similar predicament. Now, we turn to the opposite: From photographer Mark Laita comes Created Equal— a visual study of diffrence between subcultures.

During Mark’s 2020 interview with the Whitaker family, we see him interact with Lorraine, Ray, and Timmy. Jeanette May’s still lifes reveal our complicated relationship with obsolete technology by juxtaposing the seductive designs and the inner workings of Curious Devices.As a teenager he devoted all his time to photography, eventually working on a series of portraits of Chicago's homeless people. Putting that grand message aside, however, it’s also simply fun to imagine some of these people meeting. They are kind of protected by the neighbours and the relatives don’t like these people coming to ridicule them," Laita said on an episode of the Koncrete KLIPS podcast.

FILMMAKER Mark Laita created a documentary that explored the real lives of America's most inbred family. That visit was interrupted by an angry neighbour with a short-gun who threatened to use it if I didn’t leave the Whittakers alone.Apart from a few exceptions, what is obviously missing is the upscale view we have gotten so used to - the sense of money and power and glossied-up beauty - that has been such a staple of recent times. The captions which are incorporated into the photos are essential to the interpretation of the double-images: Laita gives the models details by stating the profession, name, city and state and finally the date on which the photo was taken. The Whittakers made it to the spotlight after a photographer named Mark Laita snapped them for his book, Created Equal, in 2004.