Grace Ramsdell

Studio Art and English & Creative Writing major

As I see it now, my attachment to photography has always been rooted in some anxiety. In not quite being happy in the moment, yet still wanting to capture something about it. In feeling the passage of time and in separation anxiety. In needing to prove to myself something that happened-- or that something happened. I've idealized my parents' and other family members' pasts thorugh the images in their family photo albums, and for a while that was pretty much the extent of my attention to photography. At Wellesley, I began to look beyond my family's photos and to think more deeply about the medium.

Today, photography is a means for me to make sense of the people in front of me, the emotions we feel together. I can make a photograph and still be present in what's happening, but I can also frame how a moment or place is remembered. It's important to me not to confuse those two actions-- being present, and remembering. They are not interchangeable. Photographing my family and places that are important to me reminds me of that. I share photographs of home with you as a meditation on unexpectedness, time, living closely, narrative, familiarity. But the lived moments-- real celebrations, real hurt, sometimes both at once, and definitely everything in between-- only we get to keep those.

Going, Going

handbound book with inkjet, letterpress, litho prints; inkjet prints from scans; mixed media

Jewett Gallery

hands holding open a book showing green, white, and red floral end paper at left; at right, white page with text 'Going, Going, Grace Ramsdell'

square book with red cover standing upright on pedestal; cut out in the center of the cover shows black text reading 'Going, Going' on white background rectangle

This is a project about my grandma and her house in Northern Vermont. It is a dual portrait; they reflect each other. The photobook Going, Going, the main element of this project, is a work you can move through at different times with different filters. You can turn the pages of the book with an eye on the way light shifts or the seasons change; you can watch the same places reappear in different pictures; you can look for me in the photos; you can track my dad, or my aunt, who grew up in the house. This is what I love about the codex form. You can move through it again and again, flipping back to an earlier page before you finish, even. You set the pace, and you hold the narrative in your own hands.

gallery install of small red book on white pedestal; behind on a white wall are a triangle of small photographs over a red flower box filled with real red and green geraniums

red flower box filled with real red and green geraniums on a white background

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