The I Remember Projects
2020 – 2023, North Carolina
2024, Montana
Assembled Memories / Shared Histories
About the Projects
The I Remember Projects are participatory multi-generational community engagement projects that result in public artworks. The project, inspired by Joe Brainard’s book, was conceived during the imposed isolation of the pandemic in 2020.
There have been two I Remember projects to date. The first was created during an artist-in-residency at Cassilhaus in Chapel Hill in October of 2021. The second was commissioned by the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana to celebrate the museum’s 60th anniversary in 2024.
Each project uses photographic film donations from the local community as the material to create the art works. “Sewing bee” events were scheduled for each project to encourage community participation and collaboration.
I Remember Project Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT Installation View
2024
Gather from the I Remember Project, Gatewood Gallery, UNCG, Greensboro, NC
2024
Community Donations of Family Photographs
There are multiple artworks in the I Remember projects which incorporate thousands of photographic negatives and slides that were collected from generous community members in the greater Chapel Hill, North Carolina community and recently in Billings, Montana. Each donation depicts individual and family histories and collectively, the artworks function as a record of the area’s identity.
For the Yellowstone Art Museum’s commission in celebration of the museum’s 60th anniversary in 2024, museum staff also combed the archives to gather images which include the construction of the museum, artist talks, art education programs for children, innovative installations and celebrated art objects.
Individual community members found negatives and slides gathering dust in old wooden crates in a garage, in old notebooks filled with personal history, in boxes under beds, tucked away in basement storage and piled up in envelopes in a desk drawer. Negatives were also donated by present day students working in the wet darkroom, embracing the tactile process of traditional photography as an alternative means of expression.
The donated photographic materials span over 100 years and provide a window into life in these areas from the early 1900’s to 2024.
The images reveal moments in our lives, slices of time that encourage reflection: weddings, funerals, family gatherings, trips, portraits of loved ones, light falling on the landscape and of course cats.
Drop boxes for materials were set up in local libraries and businesses for donations. Each participating community member filled out a form with the history of the negatives or slides. All donations are copied and as a thank you interested donors had the option of receiving digital files.
Multiple sewing bees were held at local venues in both Chapel Hill, NC and Billings, MT. Community participants sewed stories together one stitch at a time.
The Art Pieces
I Remember Project
Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT 2024
There are four art works in I Remember Project commission for the Yellowstone Art Museum, Collapsing Time, Echo, Relics and Settled. Collapsing Time was constructed using over 8,0000 donated 35mm negatives and slides. Each piece of photographic film was reshaped with a heat gun and then strung on clear filament. Echo is a 100 foot long panel of 4” x 6” photographs sewed together. The images were curated from community donations of as well as from the museum’s archive. Relics is a large pile of empty white slide mounts, the containers which held all the positive film memories. And Settled is four, eight foot light boxes showcasing medium format film donations from the 1920’s from one donor. The bottom two rows of the light boxes hold the negatives and the two top light boxes show the positives printed on clear transparency material.
The Art Pieces
I Remember Project Chapel Hill, NC 2021 - 2023
There are five art works in the original I Remember Project started at the Cassilhaus artist residency in 2021. Gather, Remember When, Every Stone on the Road Precious, Even the Stars Know Your Name and Steal the Elixir and Run were all created using film donations from the Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh and Hillsborough, North Carolina communities. Gather was constructed using over 8,0000 donated 35mm negatives and slides. These images were sewn together using waxed linen thread. Remember When is a 100 foot long panel of 4” x 6” photographs sewn together. The images were curated from all community donations. Even the Stars Know Your Name is a collage of larger format negatives which date from 1913 to the present, illustrating a broad swath of photographic history and materials. Steal the Elixir and Run is made from the photographic archive of a single artist, Pinky/MM Bass. Unique to the I Remember Project, the piece honors the life work of this important artist. And Every Stone on the Road Precious uses donated glass plate negatives from the 1920’s. The negatives sit in custom built double-sided lightboxes made from reclaimed North Carolina American Chestnut wood.
Remember When
Over 8,000 donated photographic images have been copied and archived. Selections from these negatives have been printed as 4” x 6” archival pigment prints and sewn together to form a long strip of over 100 feet. This strip can be modified to fit any venue for exhibition. At sewing bee events, participants were asked to answer the question “what does community mean to you?”. These statements are included in this long string of photographs.
Statement by the Artist
“As I bind these materials together, at a time when division is so strong in our country, I’ve been thinking about what defines a community and how we gather in meaningful ways. The sharing of stories is often at the core of human connection and as a photographer, I know that photographs have the power to connect as well as to divide. I care about the connection and know that our shared memories greatly outweigh our differences. Sparked by the power of family photographs, these projects have become an opportunity for these communities to participate, pause and reconsider the many perspectives of a communal experience.”
Thank you to the following organizations and individuals for their generous support and help in getting these projects off the ground.
In Montana: the Yellowstone Art Museum, Premium Sponsors of the commission, Jon Lodge & Jane Waggoner Deschner, Supporting Sponsor, First Interstate Bank, Contributing Sponsors
Sherri Cornett & Steve Kriner and Donors, Darcie & Nick Tempel
In North Carolina, Durham Arts Council, Chapel Hill Library, Orange County Arts Commission, Freeman’s Creative, Durham Main Library, Durham Library East Regional Branch, Duke University MFA Program, Click Photography Festival and the Nasher Museum Reflections Group.
Special thanks go to Frank Konhaus and Ellen Cassilly of Cassilhaus in Chapel Hill for providing support for the first I Remember project in the form of a creative artist in residency experience enhanced by community engagement.
Statements from Participants
“I remember the joy, laughter and love surrounding all of us in these photos.”
“These donations are from when I was teaching photography at the University of Maryland, 1999-2009. These negatives are with high school students in a special education class of students with developmental disabilities, exchanging cameras and making portraits. It is important to me as a professional photographer and educator to use my work to serve the community. I find myself, now after half a century, continuing this personal mission.”
“This is Maplewood Cemetery in Durham where tobacco barons and their families lie under elaborate late Victorian monuments. Growing up, I longed for the Somewhere Else where people wrote books, acted in plays, painted pictures and gave parties to which I was invited - miraculously, this turned out to be Hillsborough, the very place I ran away to find.”
“I remember when I took most of these photos. I was in photography class in college and loved it more than anything else in the world. Every family member, location or event was my subject.”
“1983-1985 my daughter Jennifer and also me.”
“It was nice to look back at the past to find these images.”
“My cousin’s wedding, September, 1997, Hendersonville, North Carolina. The marriage dissolved long ago, but our family remains strong and beautiful.”