11-4-16
On November 2nd, I attend the artist lecture that was being given by the photography artist Jennifer Garza-Cuen. Her work and images are meant to represent a place when we ask the question "where are we from?" She began by distinguishing trajectory vs origin and tells us that as we grow older, one's origin becomes just a story. She explains how she became a traveler and her sister, who I believe initially wanted to go with her, became an electrical engineer. The first project Garza-Cuen showed us was her Wandering In Place images. These are meant to represent a metaphorical memoir, a piece of documentary photography in which she photographs the places as she sees them. She becomes familiar with the places and the people in it as she documents them through photography.
Another project focuses on taking a photo that excludes something, making the photo partially false and what exists in the photo either does or did exist at some point, if only for that period of time. She does something similar with her Fictionalized Biographies, except now there are lies mixed among many truths. The photographic effects the Garza-Cuen uses are meant to, in a way, slow the images down in order for people to truly experience them and see what is happening in them. In her archive projects she mentions how documentary photography has rules that you don't even realize you are following by framing the world and taking it with you. She focuses on one archival project, that it The Office of Robert D., in which she talks about how she photographed what was left in someone's office and then tried to piece together his life through any connections that she could find. Her photograph of an abandoned police room is meant to provoke a transformation, and make a mark on the person viewing the photo.
The last project that Jennifer Garza-Cuen speaks about is her Criminal Abstractions in which the photography aspect is tied to the justice system through criminals and their mugshots. However, these mugshots are barely visible, as if they were somehow ruined. She ends her talk by ending where she began, with her Wandering in Place project, specifically in Reno. She talks about how she walked many miles around the city and mentions how she learned of many deaths that have occurred in Reno, NV, as well as other facts she has learned while being there.
I like most photographers' artwork and Jennifer Garza-Cuen is no exception. Most of her photos include a single or a couple of models who pose somewhere in the photograph, either as a focus point or to show the staging aspect of her photography, for she often separates the stories of the people form what is actually being portrayed in the photos. She also likes to show the wear and tear of a place and that is has been lived in. This is an aspect of her photography that I really love because I feel like when you go to a place that has been abandoned and many things have been left behind, you can get a sense of how those people lived or what they liked without meeting the people who used to be there. If the place has been abandoned long enough it is almost as if you are stepping back into the past and could begin to image how these people were living there lives before something happened to where they had to leave their belongings behind. I enjoyed attending Garza-Cuen's talk at the University of Reno, NV, and loved experiencing her photographs during that time.
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