Aline Smithson’s conceptual works begin where photographic materials and processes encounter lost and found moments. She has been exploring our complicated relationships with our memories and the devices we use to capture them, our self-presentation and surrounding, focusing primarily on analog photography. Smithson’s work is also at the core of the exhibition, “If Memory Serves: Photography, Recollections and Vision,” which I curated at the Brand Library and Art Center (on view through February 24, 2024) organized with the Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP). Her solo project, “The Ephemeral Archive,” consists of new and revisited bodies of work that consider the loss, presence and being-with of our images and the moments they capture—from site-specific installations to text-based images, from vernacular found photographs to experimental film and AI interventions. Twelve female-identified artists are also participating in the exhibition, all of whom were and are her students and mentees. Smithson is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Lenscratch, a daily journal of photography.

Rotem Rozental: Do you think there’s something we’re missing or not getting in how we engage with photography now?
Aline Smithson: Well, that is a can-of-worms question for me, as I’m a traditionalist in terms of my practice. I still shoot film and use a camera from the 1960s. I think that being an analog photographer speaks to a disappearing artistic practice—slowed down and well considered. I take very few images, and I do all my editing before I click the shutter. It is a very different way of working versus digital photography. I appreciate and, at the same time, judge, the use of easy technologies like apps on the phone or even AI. With each new trick or tool, we get further away from the core of photography. As an artist, I shouldn’t judge these new ways of working, but I also think that the effort in working with film counts for something.

Installation view. Images by Adam Kolkin

How did photography enter your life?
I have been surrounded by photography since childhood. My father was a hobbyist photographer with a darkroom in our basement. My uncle was an editorial photographer, and I had a 10-year career as a fashion editor, standing next to the greats in fashion photography. I explored photography in college, but I was much more interested in painting. It wasn’t until I became the family documentarian that I began to use the camera on a regular basis. When I finally took a photography class, it dawned on me that I could use a camera to make art.

Thinking about the title of your exhibition, “The Ephemeral Archive,” what made you begin to think about your work in relation to the archive?
I think as an analog photographer, one can’t help but think of archives, as I have boxes of silver gelatin prints, thousands of negatives and photographs everywhere in my home. I am also a photography collector. I first started making work about photographs that were now untethered from their families in 2005, and the disappearing archive has been a concern for me for a long time. However, this focus is only one part of my practice.

How did you think about the experience of loss in the context of this exhibition, and how does it play into to your larger work?
The work in this exhibition is all about the loss of the tangible photograph for future generations, and the loss of tactile evidence of familial histories. There were moments in the creation of the exhibition that were profound. For example, when I was gluing thousands of photographs to boards for the opening installation, each photograph had a caption on the back: “Billy in the snow, 1923,” or “Lydia making a face on her 3rd birthday.” With each photograph I glued down, I read the notations on the back and realized I would be the last person to witness the captions. It was a profound and psychic feeling. My larger practice explores many different ideas and themes, each unique to who I am and the things that I want to explore—beyond the archive.

Mother. Installation view

Let’s talk about some of the new works on view. For instance, what is the Paradox of a Portrait?
Much of my practice has been in portrait photography and I have thought long and hard about the photographer’s relationship to their subjects. I recognize that, in my effort to elevate the person in front of the lens, I can’t possibly create an image that reveals what that person is feeling, going through, or experiencing in their life. I wanted to create a series that speaks to this concept, especially with family archives, where most of the photographs are of smiling faces. For the series, I used found photographic portraits from the 1960s. The images were small (2 x 3 in.), so I scanned them and enlarged the portraits. I then considered each person and imagined what they might be hiding or experiencing in their life. Then I hand-cut and collaged each image to reveal a narrative of something imagined.

The Paradox of Portraiture, installation view.

This is the first time you forayed into film, with The Burden of Memory. How was the process of translating your work from still to the moving image? Did it change how you think about your photographic practice in any way?
Creating the film was one of the most exciting aspects. I have always dreamt of being a filmmaker, and it was daunting and exciting to learn the methodology and language of film. Interestingly, it didn’t change my photographic practice as much as expand it, and I am inspired to create more films. I have more ideas to expand this subject matter.

The Burden of Memory

 

We have also launched The Aline Smithson Next Generation Award, which will include an exhibition for an LA-based female-identified artist at LACP. Is there anything you would like to share in regard to emerging female artists and their status in the world of photography? Did things change and have things changed from your perspective in recent years?
I am so excited about the award, and I love knowing that each year, a female-identifying photographer will have the support of this amazing organization, with mentorship and assistance. I am very grateful to the Los Angeles Center of Photography to make this a reality. When I started out 25 years ago, all the gatekeepers were men—the curators, the photo center directors, the photo editors, etc. Today, almost all those positions are held by women. That shift in leadership has expanded the photographic landscape and made room for women’s stories, including projects about family, and more. The only arena that is predominantly male is the publishing industry. I have been keeping a sharp eye out, watching the changing landscape of photography, which has become so much more expansive. And I’m so appreciative of that shift that allows artists of all genders and ethnicities to be able to tell their stories.

All images include works by Aline Smithson; images by Adam Kolkin.

“If Memory Serves: Photography, Recollections and Vision”
Brand Library and Art Center, organized with the Los Angeles Center of Photography
Artist panel: February 10 at 2pm, with Aline Smithson, Lori Ordover and Jennifer Pritchard, moderated by Dr. Rotem Rozental. Free and open to the public.