Imogen Budetti

Sociology and Health & Society major

Having grown up in an artist community in San Francisco, I've spent much of my life learning about and making art. In recent years, my work has been influenced by my academic training at Wellesley: particularly, an interest in sociology and geographic information system mapping. Through my work I have been exploring how history persists today through family ties, identity, and the built environment. In light of these themes, research and accuracy are very important aspects of my work. Photography lends itself to the accuracy I value, and although I have been focusing less on my actual photography, the use of photographs remains an integral part of my practice.

Ulster

paper, Dura-lar, ink, archival inkjet prints

Jewett Hallway Galleries

I decided to make this book after living in Belfast for 6 months. Because I lived there during COVID, I spent a lot of time walking through the city. Much of this project was informed by my observations and photographs from these walks. This book is an illustration of the physical manifestation of conflict, division, and sectarianism. The built environment in Belfast is in many ways responding to persistent conflict, and through this book I hope to elucidate how the built environment is not passive, but rather informs present identities and communities.

Appearing at the beginning of the book are GIS maps that I made. As far as I've found, my map is the most complete and up-to-date publicly available map of peace lines in Belfast. It includes all aspects of the built urban environment that act as impenetrable barriers: peace lines, freeways, and train tracks. In conversation with the walls is census data that illustrates the concentration of Protestant and Catholic communities.

Jane

paper, laser toner prints

Jewett Hallway Galleries

I've always been interested in oral histories. For this project, I interviewed my Gran about her childhood in England between 1940 and 1957. She was born as WWII began and was evacuated from London at only 3 years old. After the war, she attended a Catholic all-girls boarding school. Through her own words and my illustrations, this book shares her memories.

I decided to make this book an accordion so that it can be fully opened and viewed as a continuous timeline of her childhood. Research played an important role in the design of this book. I sourced the colors from popular house paints from the 1940s. The typefaces I chose would have been utilized in that time period-- Johnston, being the font of the London Underground, is still in use today. To create my drawings, I referenced family photographs. However, because many of these moments were not captured, I relied heavily on museum archives as well.

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