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December Issue 2004

USC - Sumter in Sumter, SC, Offers Works by Kathleen Robins

The University Gallery inside Anderson Library at USC Sumter in Sumter, SC, is presenting the exhibition, 1,000 Beautiful Things, featuring photography by Columbia, SC-based artist Kathleen Robins. The exhibit will be on view through Dec. 17, 2004.

"Several years ago, my mother sent a book to me, which she discovered among my grandmother's things," says Robins. "The book, titled One Thousand Beautiful Things, was a collection of poems, and inside the front cover there was a note to me from my grandmother. When I thumbed through the book, several yellowed clippings and a lock of hair fell to the floor."

Robins continues, "My grandmother lived on our family's land in the Mississippi Delta for sixty years, until Alzheimer's symptoms required she move into town. In 2001, I moved home to live on the farm for the first time in my life, and her stories, photographs, and vague recollections became part of my experience. I lived there for two years and took inventory of her belongings."

"I am interested in the relationship between time and memory, and in the creation of a constructed identity through the collecting and recontextualization of keepsakes and family photographs," say Robins of her work. "This series combines digitized film stills with photographs and flatbed scans of family memorabilia."

Robbins is an assistant professor of art at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where she teaches all levels of photography. Her work is based on the significance between time and memory and the relationship between place and identity in the South. Robbins' images have been regionally and nationally exhibited, and her photographs are part of numerous private and public collections, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.

After receiving her MFA in 2001 from the University of New Mexico, Robins taught at Delta State University in Cleveland, MS, before joining the USC faculty in 2003. Currently, Robbins' images can be seen at the Society for Contemporary Photography in Kansas City, MO, the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA, and Southside Gallery in Oxford, MS.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call 803/938-3858, weekdays.


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