Marisa Chafetz
Winter 2025 Cycle – Photography
Locust Valley, New York marisachafetz.com
Artist Statement Biography
My work is rooted in fostering interpersonal intimacy and engaging with photography as a medium of collective memory. I am inspired by the democratic nature of photography and its ability to shape how we remember and perceive the world. Currently, I am developing a new project titled “Last Words of a Shooting Star” that examines death, memory, and the land through portraits and landscapes created in cemeteries. These spaces, steeped in reflections on mortality and the passage of time, feel especially relevant to a photographic practice. Drawing on the long-standing connection between photography and death within the medium's history, I use this work to explore my relationship with photography itself. I’m especially interested in how images—like gravestones—become vessels of memory, shaped by love and longing. By paying close attention to individuals in these charged landscapes, I hope to reflect on photography’s power to both witness and preserve the emotional traces we leave behind.
My work is rooted in fostering interpersonal intimacy and engaging with photography as a medium of collective memory. I am inspired by the democratic nature of photography and its ability to shape how we remember and perceive the world. Currently, I am developing a new project titled “Last Words of a Shooting Star” that examines death, memory, and the land through portraits and landscapes created in cemeteries. These spaces, steeped in reflections on mortality and the passage of time, feel especially relevant to a photographic practice. Drawing on the long-standing connection between photography and death within the medium's history, I use this work to explore my relationship with photography itself. I’m especially interested in how images—like gravestones—become vessels of memory, shaped by love and longing. By paying close attention to individuals in these charged landscapes, I hope to reflect on photography’s power to both witness and preserve the emotional traces we leave behind.
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