Exhibition: Archive as Action, Archive as Discourse
2025 April 30 – May 31 (SITE Sharp Gallery).
https://sites.saic.edu/sitegalleries/archived/archive-as-action-archive-as-discourse/
Through my access to archives I’ve gained an understanding of myself and my ancestors that live through me. I gained the privilege to see images of people who reflect not only my features but my mothers and grandmothers. Through the creation of my artwork I questioned how I can remove images from the archive to create a new story. My ceramic cups shown here feature a portrait of my Granny Lou, her husband and son, as well as the boys and girls group she supported in Pomaria, South Carolina. Through my research of archives such as Historical Newspapers of South Carolina published by the University of South Carolina Libraries, The Library of Congress Slave Narrative archive, and oral transmission from other ancestors I was able to find documentation of her experience as a slave a photo that brought to life the words I read on the page. I created 6 ceramics cups and used photo decal processes to fire and glaze the images onto the cups to create a sense of permanence. With this new view of permanence in context of the archive these images don’t have to live in fear of censorship or removal of narratives that give accounts to African American ancestry. The act of placing the images onto these cups removed from the gruesome text that surrounds them on the pages of the archive lets the images live in peace, a harmony of being more than just their story of hardship. Now the ceramic cups have become heirlooms that serve a purpose of helping generations after me piece together the story of family. To put a picture to a name is more than context; it’s a sense of understanding how everyone before you lives through you.
Carissa Hodges 