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Amy Elkins and Eliza Gregory, image by Imani Jack
Sac State students document complex history of Sutter's Fort through photography project
“Ruptured relationships to land mean that we, as a society, both individually and collectively, have some kind of rupture or break between ourselves and the land we live on,” Gregory said. “The site of Sutter’s Fort and the State Indian Museum has this power, this import, this heaviness about it, because it’s this moment of rupture for a lot of people, both symbolically and literally.”
This most recent part of the project, called [Placeholder: Swallowtail], continues something that is also very important to Gregory: the professional and creative development of the next generation of photographers.
Students in Gregory’s senior capstone course, which is a graduation requirement, have spent the fall semester learning about the site and its history while capturing images of the people, flora, fauna and other objects that interact with the space.
Their work is on display at two concurrent art exhibitions, one at the Verge Center for the Arts and the other at the State Indian Museum, both taking place through Dec. 8.
Read the full article by Jonathan Morales here.
[Placeholder: Swallowtail]
“You are not just visitors to this land anymore—you are also stewards who carry responsibility for its safekeeping.”
– Meyo Marrufo, artist and participant in the [Placeholder: Swallowtail] class project
California State Parks, Capital District is pleased to announce the opening of a two-week long exhibit of student photography at the State Indian Museum. The exhibit, entitled [Placeholder: Swallowtail], emerges out of a novel collaboration with the Design Department at California State University, Sacramento. Thirty-five senior students in the Photography BFA program spent months researching and photographing the landscape of the State Indian Museum and Sutter’s Fort, two local State Historic Parks that share the same site in urban Sacramento.
Read the full Arts in Parks article here.
Image and Poster Design by Kevin Azcueta
Image by Charles Victor
SACRAMENTO STATE PHOTOGRAPHY ALUMNI HIGHLIGHT FOOD INSECURITY THROUGH YOLO FOOD BANK PARTNERSHIP
“We are trying to tell stories that contain nuance and complexity,” she said. “We’re not looking to tell the same old story that objectifies people receiving services, receiving support. We want to try to tell new kinds of stories, where contradiction, emotion – true humanity – can come to the fore.”. [October 2023]
To read the full article written by Jonathan Morales click here.
STUDENT PHOTO PROJECT EXPLORES HUMANS’ RELATIONSHIP TO LAND
“Sac State students, led by Assistant Professor of Photography Eliza Gregory recently displayed their work at the Verge Center for the Arts in downtown Sacramento [December 2022]. The project showed how photographs can communicate human relationships to the land they occupy”.
To read the full article written by Jonathan Morales click here.
Image by Muzi Li Rowe
Image by Abigale Bollengier
PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENTS CREATE BOOK SET EXPLORING CONNECTION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND PLACE
“The project, one-half of a senior capstone course that continues this semester, connects with multiple Sac State priorities, Gregory and Dertinger said. In line with the anchor university initiative emphasizing the University’s connection and service to the region, the project sends students into communities to work, asking students to explore each community’s diversity. Collectively, the books highlight the students’ diversity”. [December 2021]
To read the full article written by Jonathan Morales click here.
SEEING THE LIVES OF IMMIGRANTS IN OBJECTS AND IMAGES OF HOME
The exhibition, created by the social practice artist, photographer, and San Francisco native Eliza Gregory, grew out of a three-year collaboration with the museum’s Artists Drawing Club. Gregory conducted interviews and collected objects, ephemera, and family photos to create testimonies, or formal accounts, of immigration to the San Francisco Bay Area. “Each testimony offers counterpoints to the contemporary and deeply troubled dialogue around immigration,” she told me. [April 2018]
To read the full article written by Daniela Blei click here
Image by Eliza Gregory
Image by Eliza Gregory
‘TESTIMONY’ COMPLICATES ASSUMPTIONS WITH EMPATHETIC PORTRAITS OF IMMIGRANTS
The exhibit — featuring, alongside the interview text and plainly staged portraits, photos of their living spaces and various objects and memorabilia they own — is instead meant specifically to combat our ingrained and unspecified beliefs, to re-frame the conversations we have around immigration, Gregory says. [April, 2018]
To read the full article written by Brandon Yu click here