By Elin Spring
Memory is notoriously subjective. Along with the 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition curated by Barbara Tannenbaum, reviewed earlier this week, The Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA has mounted two solo shows curated by Executive Director Crista Dix: Lisa McCord’s “Rotan Switch” and Preston Gannaway’s “Remember Me.” Resonant with the Juried Exhibition in its focus on the way memories shape our world view and choices, each of these shows follows a long narrative arc, and in book form, serve as sensitive, bittersweet memoirs. The work on display illustrates a slice of each story in rich, layered images that enlarge and compliment the experience of their book forms, which are also available at the museum. On view through September 6th, 2026.
“Boys with Car” 1980, by Lisa McCord, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
“Lind and Mom at the Mississippi River” 1985, by Lisa McCord, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
Los Angeles-based photographer Lisa McCord returns to the rural Arkansas cotton farm of her youth in her project and book “Rotan Switch” (Kehrer Verlag, 2024). Named after the railroad switch in Rotan where farmers used to load their cotton bales, McCord maintained a documentary B&W practice over the course of 45 years, re-visiting its simultaneously shifting, yet stagnant, human ecosystem. Compassionate exchanges between McCord and her old nanny, Cully, co-exist with many more segregated groupings whose mannerisms subtly underline southern stereotypes.
“Grandparents Fairley and Great Grandmother Johnson” 1989, by Lisa McCord, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
“Sunday School” 1980, by Lisa McCord, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
From the cotton fields that shaped her childhood, McCord has reaped a fecund, entwined family history in a visual memoir that is largely chronological, intimately seen, and deeply felt. Her compositions are elegant, almost timeless. Even more potent, McCord’s connection to her subjects is obviously laden and complex. Owning up to the complicity of her Southern family’s landowner roots, her use of B&W imagery seems an apt metaphor for racial divides that still exist. But there is also a special tenderness in the way that the long tonal range of her photographs channels the relationships that have evolved over five generations.
Feature Image: “Sewing with Cully” 1982, by Lisa McCord, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
“EJ in the window” 2006, by Preston Gannaway, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
Over 20 years ago, Preston Gannaway got a newspaper assignment to photograph the story of a young New Hampshire family dealing with the searing terminal cancer treatment endured by the mother. Her affecting series was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. That might have been the end of it, but Gannaway’s empathy with the mother and the fear that her youngest child, 4 year-old EJ, would be too young to remember her, prompted a still-ongoing narrative, this solo show, and book “Remember Me” (GOST 2023).
“Mother’s Day #1” 2007, by Preston Gannaway, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
“Rich and EJ in the doorway” 2014, by Preston Gannaway, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
In a blend of portraits and landscapes detailing everyday routines along with weighted, pensive interludes, Gannaway transforms the specificity of one family’s tragedy and its aftermath into a tactful, introspective essay on passing time and our own mortality. In colorful compositions that imply enduring vitality, she inserts rays of hope into both the ordinary and shadowy moments of EJ’s life. And while her longitudinal narrative acknowledges the inevitable – EJ cannot recall any memories of his mother – Gannaway envisions the healing power of human relationships with the steady passage of days and years.
“Rich and EJ in Boy Scouts uniforms” 2018, by Preston Gannaway, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
“Living room window” 2022, by Preston Gannaway, courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.
For more information about these exhibits and associated programming, go to: https://griffinmuseum.org/current-exhibitions/
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