Since the invention of photography in the 1830s, the increasing convenience of producing and displaying images has dramatically transformed photo portraiture. The elite ritual of sitting for a portrait is now a common activity of daily occurrence. The democratization of portraiture closed the doors of many traditional studios and forced others to diversify their business.
My project began with a list of the studios that took the portraits in the collection. I took photographs of the current businesses/households located at the sites where the original photo studios once stood, or, still stand, and paired these images with photographs from the collection to form an installation in the parlor. With the addition of slide projections of the original photographs and a fictionalized letter in an audio piece, this installation provides a narrative that reflects on the ways photography, beyond its surface, can depict economic and social conditions, as well as change.
Let the Word Vanishing until the End is part of the program "Art + History" curated by Rosie Branson Gill and Meg Rotzel.