Relative Moments by Deanna Dikeman, Chose Commune

In Deanna Dikeman’s family album, ordinary moments embody universal truths and become a source of everyday wonder.

Following the publication of Leaving and Waving in 2021, which featured a selection of Deanna Dikeman’s three-decade-long photographic exploration of her family, we are delighted to present the complete original series in a comprehensive 300-page volume: Relative Moments.

In Relative Moments, Deanna Dikeman chronicles the ordinary moments she shares with her family. Gardening, cutting a cake, filling the birdbath, mending clothes, mowing the lawn, or harvesting rhubarb—through these simple, everyday activities, she reveals a world that might otherwise go unnoticed. Generously edited and carefully sequenced, the book brings together 200 photographs. Its focus extends beyond the individual image, inviting readers to experience the continuity of the moments that together form a larger story.

While the project serves as a visual archive of the photographer’s family life, it also speaks to broader, universal truths about American culture, the familiar, and the endless capacity of everyday life to inspire wonder.

Deanna Dikeman (born in 1954 in Sioux City, Iowa, USA) lives in Kansas City. Since 1985, when she left her job to pursue photography full time, she has been photographing her family throughout the American Midwest. She received an Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship in 1996, a United States Artists Booth Fellowship in 2018, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023.

Relative moments, Deanna Dikeman. Chose commune, April 2024.