NOVEMBER 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
Memory Bank | Katie Ione Craney
This series is a reflection on my slow move from Southeast to the Interior; a process over 10 years in the making when I first started grad school and am now back to finish a degree in the Arctic & Northern Studies program. Within many of the images are words and phrases written in Braille. Some words repeat as meditations on their meaning and are in conversation with the place they are paired with. Incorporating Braille and mirrored surfaces into my work echoes a sensory experience of the lands and beings in the imagery. I’ve been learning to write in Braille as a communication attempt with my Great Grandmother Mary Etta, who was blind, as well as create space to consider many ways of knowing and being in relationship with a place or a person.
The handwritten Braille in this series is a letter-for-letter transcription, also known as Grade 1 Braille. The letters are written backwards, as I use a portable slate and a hand stylus to press the letters onto the page, or in this case, onto clear transparencies or into soft metal.
Photographs by Hans Hallinen