LED ON AS BY THE PROMISE OF A FEAST SPREAD FOR US... | AN UNFIXED PILGRIMAGE
Collaboration with Sara J. WinstonWe (Jared Ragland and Sara Winston) have known each other for 15 years. Our friendship began when Sara was a student of Jared’s at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Over the years our relationship has grown from one of mentorship to valuable peerage.
For both of us, the notion of place is primary in our studio practice, as is the need to connect to place to find meaning in daily life. But nearly three years ago, in order to put stakes in the ground for the mirage of job security in academia, we each settled in regions we never expected to live and now struggle to call home. Jared now resides in northern Utah; Sara in the Hudson River Valley. For Jared it is an alien landscape, far from his native Alabama. For Sara, it is familiar countryside–only 40 miles north of her hometown but seen anew through the altered consciousness of parenthood. As a result of our moves, the critical connection to place has been difficult to engage, if not wholly absent.
In his 1971 essay, The Unforeseen Wilderness, Wendell Berry calls for a visual sensitivity to place that leads to self-discovery, upon which we can “arrive at the ground at our own feet and learn to be at home.” Photography requires one to look outward, to observe the world, and to acknowledge the camera’s power and presence. But to do it well, Berry argues, an inward journey is also required. As we open up, so does the world. But creating connection takes time, an abundance of photographs, and dialogue with a trusted peer to find what might be overlooked.
As a way of “learning to be at home” while also seeking ways to better integrate our pedagogical and studio practices, we have pulled a page from our own syllabi, taking on an ambitious assignment we each routinely give our students: “20/40/10.” The assignment requires students to shoot 20 rolls of film, make 40 work prints, and complete 10 final prints. It was originally developed by Joe Cameron and Claudia Smigrod, who served as mentors to both of us at the Corcoran.
By expanding "20/40/10" to a more than two-year-long investigation, we seek to combine praxis and pedagogy as means to look inward and outward, find artistic fulfillment, and create personal meaning. The pictures document a range of intimate and quotidian moments while seeking beauty and meaning within domestic spaces and the wider landscapes of home.
Midway through the project, in June 2024, we gathered at Nine Marks Studio in Richmond, Va. to share and evaluate our progress. Together we created an unfixed pilgrimage, which features 40 black and white photographs (20 by Ragland; 20 by Winston) situated alongside text from The Unforeseen Wilderness and case bound as two artist proof books.
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Exhibitions:
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On the Shelf, Filter Photo, Chicago, IL (juried by Clint Woodside), 2024.
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Reciprocity: Expanding Ideas of Community, SPE West/Southwest Members Exhibition, Kimball Visual Art Center, Weber State University, Ogden, UT, 2024.
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