relics // remnants // remembrance

Artist Statement

Remnants // relics // remembrance is a commemoration of familial lineage towards the future through the traces of the past of my ancestors. The archive of objects and photographs they left behind are brought into the present through my photographs; self-portraits and still lifes revealing interactions with the books, jewelry, and images that remain posthumously. By wearing my ancestors’ jewelry, posing alongside their photographs, and incorporating my own objects and images into the archive, I am reintroducing embodiment to absence. Photographing these interactions becomes a part of a ritual in which I explore my own place in time and practice remembrance towards the future. Engaging with the contents of the archive brings the belongings of my ancestors into the present to be reimagined as relics . These everyday objects become symbolic stand-ins for my ancestors and are presented with reverence. Within this archive, I choose to pay homage to the women in my family – those who are pictured, those whose belongings have been passed down, and the one whose photographs are a part of this work. As equal parts archivist and artist within this body of work, I am assembling a history so that I may become a part of it one day.

Printing images from this inherited archive as cyanotypes and capturing my own performances on film references both historical and contemporary photographic practices which parallels the historical and contemporary timelines within each piece. Through this work, I am creating a record of my own life in conversation with the past and aligning my photographs with those within the archive. The creation of this work is imbued with a melancholic recognition of my own mortality, while the process of archiving provides a method of self-preservation. This merger of the past and present allows me to consider what traces of me will exist within a future archive: a future where the photographs, jewelry, and handwritten notes of today are remnants to be rediscovered.