The Bridge

In 2004 I was approached by my mother and handed a small leather case, worn but sturdy, containing more than 100 antique glass negatives, taken by my great-great-grandfather, Robert Veitch. Veitch operated a grocery store in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, and on the side produced and sold photographic post cards, a trade both niche and lucrative in the latter part of the 19th century. I was instantly taken aback; not just by the uniqueness of these negatives, but by the fact that I was being handed a never-before-seen (outside of a few family members) chronicle of New York City history, and one that just happened to double as a 100+ year-old family album. "Maybe you can do something with this," my mother remarked.

More than 8 years later The Bridge has emerged: an offering to a lost generation, an homage to the experiences of those who have come before, and an attempt to communicate with the dead by way of a deeply personal visual love letter. Through my work I ask the viewer to listen for the words of my relatives. Can the dead speak through the living? In the spaces between the photographs of then and now there exists a temporal void that bears witness to a startling amount of change, and yet, the differences between us are both great and small. It is in that space that comfort lies, proving once again that we are never as far from the source as we might think.

(view the press release)

The Bridge was first shown at the Hionas Gallery, November 2012.

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