Q&A: Tracy L Chandler Explores Memory and Trauma in ‘A Poor Sort of Memory’
☆ BY Isabel Dowell ☆
FINDING HEALING IN THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY — Tracy L. Chandler explores the memories and trauma she associates with growing up in her debut monograph, A Poor Sort of Memory. A collection of serene, eerie, and minimalist landscapes, A Poor Sort of Memory, published by Deadbeat Club, portrays the various locations that Chandler visited and found solace in as a child.
“As I revisited old hideouts in concrete washes and private bunks in rock formations, I was reminded of a past laden with trauma and my desperation to find both a sense of belonging and an independent self,” Chandler confides. “I found myself chasing ghosts and evading monsters, and I struggled to parse memory from fantasy and reflection from projection… Do I believe that making photographs will bring back some sort of truth? My experience is the opposite.”
Feelings of claustrophobia and alienation are prominent in Chandler’s images. From nature-made black holes to looming shadows, it’s hard to find the words to express how strong the emotions emanating from Chandler’s images are without actually taking a peek for yourself. Unfortunately, you might have to understand those same feelings in order to truly put yourself in Chandler’s shoes. If you’re able to, hopefully these images help you feel less alone and allow you to heal along with the photographer.
Sometimes words can speak louder than the image they accompany, i.e. some things are better left unsaid. Excluding words from her work allows viewers to engage openly and personally with each image without being told how to do so. Even though I have not been to California in many years, nor have I experienced these settings firsthand, I can still feel myself in each and every one of Chandler’s images. Her work is simplistic and minimal in looks but explosive and dominating in emotion.
Read below as Chandler talks to us about how writing is incorporated into her process, how the project shaped her as an artist, and more.
A Poor Sort of Memory can be pre-ordered from the publisher’s site, and is set to ship in early September.
LUNA: Hi, Tracy! Thank you for sharing your monograph, A Poor Sort of Memory, with Luna, and for chatting with us. As this collection of photographs explores trauma you experienced as a child, do you believe the process of creating this book has helped you to heal?
CHANDLER: Yes, I suppose it has helped. Not so much that any one issue has been reconciled but more that I have a deeper understanding of my own perceptions. By revisiting my past and photographing around my hometown, I saw that things were sometimes different than I remembered. The more I tried to pin down details of a memory into a photograph, the more the memory would evaporate, and the resulting photograph was entirely its own new thing. I came to realize that both memory and photographs are both ephemeral and subjective, influencing and even supplanting each other. Maybe if there was no singular objective past, then maybe there was room to evolve my experience of the here and now. Maybe I could let go of any one specific narrative and build a new one. This process opened up a lot of space to move and make meaning, both psychologically and artistically.
Beyond that, and maybe this sounds cheesy, but I find that making work — the creative process in and of itself — is healing. Being in the flow of creation brings me out of the autobiographical ego and into the self. The ultimate healing short-cut.
LUNA: Are there any photos in particular that elicit strong emotions for you? Whether looking back on them now or when you were physically taking that image?
CHANDLER: “Eli in Safety Gear” is one of my favorite portraits from the series. The Thrasher T-shirt and moto helmet allude to a certain sense of daredevil risk-taking, but all of the layers of protection block the viewer from seeing the subject’s true essence, his innocence. It reminds me of all the coping mechanisms, the masks we wear. It’s kind of heartbreaking.
And “Palm Oasis” has always been an emotional image for me. It is one of the few in the series where we are on the inside. I have many photographs of vast open landscapes, lots of isolation, damage, and harsh environments. The Palm Oasis works differently — we are at a low childlike angle; the trees offer refuge and protection from the elements, the light is soft. It feels cozy to me. I sometimes refer to it as “the tree family.”
LUNA: You’ve been working with photography as a creative medium for quite some time. When you first began, did you explore any other subjects of photography?
CHANDLER: My journey with photography started in action sports, mostly skateboarding and bikes. Early on, photographing these subjects was a way of connecting with my friends and being part of a movement. It was easy to point the camera at something I loved. Over time it turned into a career, making work for brands. It wasn’t until later that my love for photography evolved to include the medium itself and for me to see how making images can be an interpretive expression of self. It took some un-learning to allow myself to make work for me.
LUNA: How does this documentary style, memorial-esque type of photography help you grow as a person and as an artist?
CHANDLER: For me, the process of documenting evolved into self-reflection and even photographic fiction. As I started making this work, I was trying to depict specific objects and sites from my memories. For example, I started making pictures of my family home, an old skate spot, or nostalgic souvenirs. These pictures sometimes felt flat and disappointing. They did not hold the same tension or magic of the memory. As I pushed on, I started to play, to broaden my view and let things become more interpretive, allowing the subject to be a symbol, an entry point for a feeling space. This evolution in my art practice mirrored my personal growth. I was letting go of the literal history, the old feedback loops, and began to embrace a broader view, one open to possibility and new narratives.
LUNA: Since A Poor Sort of Memory tells your story through photographs only, how do you think the lack of words helps (or hinders) the telling of your story?
CHANDLER: Writing is a huge part of my process: journaling, writing stories, recounting memories… it is completely intertwined with the making of the pictures. But ultimately I chose not to include my writing along with the photographs. For this book, I chose to keep things simple and visual. Adding words would be adding more pointers, and I don’t want to close down the experience for the viewer. I want there to be room for participation and interpretation.
The images are very specific. There is this specific boy, my son, in this specific location, my desert hometown. This work is made from my life, to be sure. But my hope is that specificity actually allows for a universality. I enjoy hearing that an image reminds someone of something or makes them think of this story or that. I want the images to be jumping off points, not closed loops.
LUNA: What was the process of taking and choosing photographs to be in the monograph? Are there any you loved as a photograph but didn’t exactly fit into the theme?
CHANDLER: Yes, many! There are images of my son that I love because I am his mother. There are landscapes that are serene and strikingly beautiful. It was helpful to work with Clint Woodside at Deadbeat Club. He is not attached to my memories and offered a different read on the images and the edit as a whole, a necessary distance. We definitely made some hard choices, ultimately choosing images that thread together the complex themes of memory and coming of age without being too didactic.
LUNA: Could you elaborate on what you meant in saying, “Do I believe that making photographs will bring back some sort of truth? My experience is the opposite”? Has your photo-taking process left you with more questions than answers?
CHANDLER: In a way, it has. And I think that is a good thing. I used to think of photography as an impartial way to preserve something, to hold on to it forever. But the more you work with the camera, the more you see it frames more out than in. The shutter only captures a fraction of the moment. Similarly, what I thought were fixed ideas about my past, my family, and myself have all softened. I think my original intention was to confirm a truth I had been holding on to since my youth, to solidify these things that happened to me. But when I started looking closer, these notions I held were one-dimensional, flat, and fixed. Looking closer and making this work breathed new life into these stories, there was nuance and multiple perspectives. There was not one truth, at least not the one I thought there was. I am happy to have broadened my view and happy to have photography as a means to that end. There is freedom in knowing everything is changing and changeable.
LUNA: What advice would you have for a photographer aspiring to capture such a vulnerable topic for the purpose of sharing it with the world?
CHANDLER: Make the work for yourself. Make the work as if you were the only audience that would ever see the results of that action. Ask yourself a lot of questions. Why am I doing this? What do I want to see? What do I want to know? Pick up the camera, paint brush, whatever and see what answers come. Then decide later if this is something that you feel like sharing with the world. Ask yourself how sharing it may change things for you. You can’t control how others see things. No matter how clear your intentions are, everyone is always projecting. So find a way to hold your thread through each stage of making and sharing.
LUNA: What do you hope viewers of this book will take away from its contents?
CHANDLER: On the surface, I’m exploring the fraught ambiguities of coming of age, feelings of isolation, fear, grief, but also growth, beauty, and possibility. With or without trauma, we can all relate to the awkward process of growing up amidst an often chaotic world. My hope is that the viewer can see themselves in this work. That these pictures offer a way into their own memories and fantasies. Maybe they too will get curious about the unreliability of memory, ask themselves what stories have they been holding onto, and leave a little room for a broader view.
LUNA: Do you have any other projects or books currently in the works?
CHANDLER: I have multiple threads going at all times and I prefer to work slowly, often making work over years at a time. I am continuing to make pictures in my hometown and now experimenting with other mediums along with photography as ways to explore the themes of memory and psychological projection. It’s exciting to be in a phase of play and possibility. We’ll see how things turn out.
