The Places We Keep: Holding Place, Holding Time

In The Places We Keep, students reflect on their most cherished spaces—familiar domestic settings, shared public forums, secret hiding spots, culturally significant locations—during a 12-week course. Guided by instructors Shannon Eggleston and Michael Wilson, students investigate the impact that time, civic development, and unseen natural forces inevitably have on their treasured places’ appearances, functions, and associations, as seen through the lens of both intimacy and distance. The resulting images consider how spaces and moments of time can hold personal and collective significance, inviting viewers to consider how individual and communal identities and memories can shape environments. 

In addition to the exhibition, students created time capsules to house film negatives of their selected works, and in some cases the displayed photographs themselves. These capsules, left at meaningful sites, offer a tangible archive for future audiences to discover. The Places We Keep is not only an exhibition, but also a gesture of continuity: a message from the present to those yet to come and an invitation to honor the places we cherish before they inevitably change.

Artists: Isabella Carty, Erin Collins, Ryland Eger, Preston Frater, Jakobi Lundy, Ta’Kaia Miller, Norah Shoemaker