Anne Collier

Essay by Lynne Tillman

A sequence of 80 images of found amateur photographs dating from the 1970s to the early 2000s that each depict a female subject holding a camera or taking a photograph. These artifacts of the pre-digital age were collected by Collier over a number of years from flea markets, thrift stores and online market places. Each of these photographs has, at some point in the recent past, been discarded by its original owner. The concept of “abandonment,” of photographic images and the personal histories that they represent, is central to Women with Cameras, which amplifies photography’s relationship with memory, melancholia and loss.