I REMEMBER

Montana artist Elizabeth Stone served as artist-in-residence for the month of October at Cassilhaus in Chapel Hill. With division so strong in our country right now, Stone has been thinking about what defines a community and how we gather together in meaningful ways. The sharing of stories is often at the core of human connection, and as a photographer Stone knows that photographs have the power to connect as well as to divide. She cares about the connection.

During Stone’s time at the Cassilhaus residency, she shared her I REMEMBER project with Chapel Hill, Durham and Hillsborough, inviting community members to participate, pause and reconsider the many perspectives of a shared experience, sparked by the power of family photographs. Throughout the residency and continuing in her home studio, Stone created a unique large scale dimensional work from donated photographic materials that are full of individual and family histories. These film materials were collected from generations who used the camera as a means of recording life events. Negatives were also collected from high school and college age students presently working in the wet darkroom. These donations were sewn together to make a large sculptural tapestry – a collaborative record of the community’s identity.

In addition to the physical art piece, each donated negative or slide will be copied, archived and included in a video celebrating and memorializing these numerous personal and family histories.