Roski artist distills nostalgia into photos

Brooke Schneider’s first solo exhibition, My Wound Is My Geography, teleports viewers to another land: one both foreign and familiar, vast and compact, deserted yet abundant with life. Stoic tree trunks, cozy wooden houses, abandoned rubble and twigs were buried in the landscape — these works, created over the course of two years, are only several in a sea of thousands of photos taken by Schneider, a senior majoring in the fine arts. Dynamic angles and earthy hues of brown, green and gray not only allow viewers to be onlookers of the land, but also to reflect upon its history and the people who have shaped it.

My Wound Is My Geography was on display at the Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery in the USC Roski School of Art and Design until Thursday, Feb. 22.

In an age where photos are digital and seemingly transient, Schneider shoots on film. She has a hands-on photography approach — personal and multidimensional — to represent her memories of South Carolina, the state she calls home. Along with her works, attendees are greeted at the door with an eloquent personal statement about the exhibition.

“There are ties that bind me to a more profound sense of place,” Schneider wrote in a statement printed in a stack by the exhibit entrance. “The union between the discreet beauty of the South, the people, my family and their trials within the landscape, is vital to my understanding of place.”

Schneider’s work is not only centered on the South Carolina landscape, but also on the sense of loss that accompanies the passing of time.

“Constructing narratives are both a mode of place making and a mode of coping with loss — the loss of time, memory, people and proximity,” she said. “Land is invariable while time is fleeting.”

When asked what she misses most about home, Schneider cited the land, the pace, the way of life and the value of tradition.

“[It] breathes a different way than being in the city does,” she said. In Los Angeles, her current residence, there tends to be a gravitation toward what is happening in the future, Schneider said, whereas the culture of the South is more concerned with nostalgia, sentimentality and the past.

The photos in the exhibition are mostly landscapes — glimpses into the living, breathing trove of Schneider’s memory bank. Some are zoomed-in explorations of fields and branches, such as “Studied by Flowers,” while others are more expansive shots of a wider area, as is the case with “In Search Of Lost Time.”

The setting in this piece is a family farm built over a century ago, a place she considers a sanctuary and a safe haven.

As for Schneider’s approach to photography, none of her photos are planned. In this way, her art is documentative. She attributes her inspiration to a particular feeling that arises when she knows she has to take a picture. One gets the sense that she is thus naturally in-tune with the land, constantly inspired by it, and perhaps even indebted to it.

“There’s something about growing up in a place and feeling so much loyalty to that place,” Schneider said.

Photography is not, however, the only artistic medium evident in the exhibit. There are also four hanging installations, each crafted by hand in 2017 and comprised entirely of tea bags and linen thread. “A Lover’s Introduction,” “Quicksilver Childhood,” “Worshipful Son” and “If You Have a Father or if You Haven’t One” are pieces — when examined more closely — stamped with images of people from Schneider’s family history. The works were not intentionally created to be placed side by side with the photographs. They did, however, come together naturally.

“All the work that I make, it’s about the same thing,” Schneider said. “It’s about sense of place, it’s about family, it’s about tradition, loss, romance.”

Described as a progression of her great grandparents’ and grandfather’s stories, these Lipton tea bag constructions tell the story of tragedy, reclamation and intergenerational relationships. The textile industry is a dominating force in her hometown, and Schneider’s use of textile materials to physically craft images was a fitting medium for the artist to to display her narrative. Wanting to honor the experiences of the people that live within the landscape she so reveres, Schneider used ink to press on impressions of old family photos.

Her family members are not only the inspirations behind and the faces upon the fabric of the pieces, but they are also the physical sources of the materials used to construct them.

“My family will send me their used tea bags,” she said.

This attention to the artistic process is something that Schneider refuses to abandon. The acts of physically sourcing, physically sewing and physically involving her family in the process come from the same place that prompts her physical approach to creating and printing photos. This hands-on creation parallels the physicality of her devotion and value to time, place and memory.

None of these works were created specifically for this exhibition. Trips spent back home in South Carolina over summers and holiday vacations constantly involved shooting. Schneider had intended for these thousands of photos to form the basis of a book she is currently working on, a portion of which will be her own writings. An avid reader, Schneider reveres Pat Conroy and Marcel Proust, both writers who are captivated by the nature of time.

The photographs in the show may not explicitly include people, but their imprints upon the land are very present within each frame, such as in “Somewhere Only We Know” (2018). These landscapes are far from desolate. Though they reflect upon loss, they touch on archetypes like home and shelter, and are thus, through the heavy veil of memory that coats them, familiar. These archetypes are what Schneider describes as “little touchstones” for people to relate their own experiences to.

When asked if she believes it is possible to remember something objectively, Schneider responded that she does not think it is, for so much of her own memory is rooted in emotion. A feeling overwhelmingly present in these photos: loss. The loss of people, time and proximity to the land that has built who she is.

“Loss sets the stage for the South that I know, at least,” she said.

Schneider’s works are earthy scenes immortalized through her eyes, the eyes of someone deeply involved in and enamored with what they capture. Addressing notions of isolation, longevity, familiarity and history, these works establish the past, memory and nostalgia not as things fleeting or weak, but as the powerful and very real sensations which inform who a person is and how they see the world.