Collaborating with the Archive

Filter Photo is pleased to announce Collaborating with the Archive, an exhibition juried by Mary Statzer. 

Juror's Statement

Archives containing photographs, documents, and other historical artifacts left behind by previous generations are powerful and essential tools for artists. I have identified three ways in which the artists in this exhibition have engaged with them. The first is as a conceptual point of departure where archival research provides information and inspiration as well as a source of appropriated imagery. The second is as a means of tapping personal histories. Using their own family’s photographs or found collections of private snapshots, many artists in this exhibition alter and add to vernacular images to tell meaningful stories or critique the broader culture. Finally, the photographer’s own work, amassed over time, can also be a productive starting point.

Questions about what constitutes an archive interest me but proved less relevant during the selection process for this exhibition. What I found important and exciting is the consistently compelling visual expressions found in this group of archive-based works and the range of significant subjects addressed, including Blackness, queerness, institutional racism, environmental histories, diasporic erasure, an invented history of illness, and the physical accumulation of photographic materials.

Featured Artists

Carmelo Amenta

Tristan Cai

Alison Carey

Kelli Connell & Natalie Krick

Diane Durant

Jennifer Everett

Rachel Fein-Smolinski

Dana Fritz

Meg Griffiths

Sarah Hadley

Muriel Hasbun, Honorable Mentions

Vikesh Kapoor

Forest Kelley, Honorable Mention

Marika Kent

Kollin Kirven

Kevin J. Miyazaki, Honorable Mention

Toni Pepe

Elizabeth Stone

Aaron Turner, Juror's Choice

Melanie Walker

About the Juror

Mary Statzer is Curator of Prints and Photographs at University of New Mexico Art Museum. She organizes exhibitions in all mediums and from UNMAM’s permanent collection. Statzer has written for Aperture magazine and edited a multi-author book titled, The Photographic Object 1970. She brought Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre’s exhibition, To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults, to UNMAM. Her other recent lens-based exhibitions include Patrick Nagatani: A Survey of Early Photographs and Please Enjoy and Return: Bruce Conner Films from the Sixties. She is currently developing a virtual platform for artist/museum engagement that will feature multi-media artist and writer, Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo, NM), in its first adaptation. Statzer holds an MFA in printmaking from Arizona State University and PhD in art history with specialties in the history of photography and museum studies from University of Arizona.

On View: September 24 – October 30, 2021

Location: Filter Space | 1821 W Hubbard St, Suite 207

This exhibition was partially sponsored by The Illinois Arts Council Agency.