Ky Alexander Page

HEARST PHOTOGRAPHY MERIT SCHOLARSHIP $2,000 

Describe the work you submitted for merits.

"Embedded in landscapes are the social histories of how a space has been shaped and reshaped by human and nonhuman forces over time. Each reinvigoration of a geography to suit human interests, desires, even human understandings of nonhuman capacities leaves traces, sometimes obscuring, eroding, or even erasing the previous human intentions." —Laurie Moberg, Minneapolis' Upper Harbor Terminal: A Geostory of Collaborative Creation

I have an interest in abandoned spaces and the history and stories that encapsulate these places. With the project Upper Mississippi Shift, I photographed the remains of the milling industry in the Twin Cities, the industry that made the Twin Cities into the hub that it is today. It was important to me to capture these places in their current state because a majority of them have plans underway to be demolished and repurposed into something that will make the land under where they once stood, profitable to humans again. This project was inspired by Henry Bosse’s Upper Mississippi Views, where he made cyanotypes in the 1880’s depicting the land around the Mississippi River during a pivotal time in history when the milling industry was just beginning. My goal was to capture the end of this era, to highlight the history and stories within these spaces before it is no longer possible to stand in their presence. The frame around ADM Delmar, from the series, Upper Mississippi Shift is from an installation of this series. In this Installation, Mill City Reclaimed, the photographs from the series Upper Mississippi Shift are displayed behind wooden frames made from wood that was found at the locations in the photographs. The wood has been repurposed and made into something usable again, just as the locations in the photographs will be repurposed and made usable to humans in the future. It is important to me to preserve this history and find purposes for not only the land but the materials as well. The materials themselves hold a vast history of the uses of the land and of the industry itself. By removing these materials from the spaces they came from and displaying them in a gallery setting, I hope to elevate the value of what would just be seen as junk but is actually a physical record of the past. 

Following my passion for forgotten places, I moved towards the realm of domestic space in my project 1967. In this photobook I explored the relationship between photographs I took of an abandoned home and the left-behind archives of the family that once lived in the house. The old family photographs were juxtaposed next to images of the dilapidated house in its current state. There is only so much one can learn from photographs of a family because most family photographs are planned and posed to make a family be represented the way they want the world to see them.

"The archive is not one and the same as forms of remembrance, or as history. Manifesting itself in the form of traces, it contains the potential to fragment and destabilize either remembrance as recorded, or history as written, as sufficient means of providing the last word in the account of what has come to pass." —Charles Merewether, Art and the Archive

This layer of fragmentation on top of my curation of the arrangement of photographs with the book, lead this book to be less about the factual history of the family, and more about the narrative I could create through the materials left-behind.

In my most recent project, Heirloom, I continued to work with archives but delved into them on a more personal level using the photographic archive of my own family. Born a biological female, I was never able to see a physical representation of myself in male role models such as my father. In Heirloom, I photographed myself mimicking photographs taken of my father when he was around the same age I am today. As a transgender man, I am now at a point in my transition where I can physically see myself in these roles that I previously felt disconnected. By documenting myself at a point where I can physically fill these roles, I am also creating a record of this time in my life that could be passed down to my children someday, as an heirloom. The title Heirloom resonated with me due to my father’s self-owned business, Heirloom Custom Woodworks, in addition to its own meaning as a valuable object passed down for generations within a family. Heirloom also calls attention to the passing on of genetics from one generation to the next. Even though I am at a point in my transition where I can now physically see a representation of myself in this role, as a transgender man I am unable to have my own biological children to pass my genes on to. There are limited and unconventional ways to create a family for myself in the future and in creating a photobook out of Heirloom I have constructed something physical that I can pass down.