Epiphany Knedler
United States
ARTIST BIO
Epiphany Knedler is an interdisciplinary artist + educator exploring the ways we engage with history. She graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Political Science and completed her MFA in Studio Art at East Carolina University. She is based in Aberdeen, South Dakota, serving as an Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Art Department at Northern State University, a Content Editor with LENSCRATCH, and the co-founder and curator of the art collective Midwest Nice Art. Her work has been exhibited in the New York Times, the Guardian, Vermont Center for Photography, Lenscratch, Dek Unu Arts, and awarded through Lensculture, the Lucie Foundation, F-Stop Magazine, and Photolucida Critical Mass.
PROJECT STATEMENT
“As a child, my family spent our vacations at my great-grandmother’s farmhouse. I remember riding my bike down the dirt roads, picking apples, riding on the tractor, going fishing, opening presents at Christmas, and exploring the fields. A few of those memories might actually be stories my father told me of his childhood, yet each holds a visual in my mind. Each time we access a memory, we rewrite the moment. The very act of remembering alters the facts. This process, called reconsolidation, makes the image a bit more blurry and malleable, a retelling of the last time we shared the memory.
Truth and authenticity have always been entangled with photography. The photographer both conceals and reveals, curating the images of our lives. Family albums hold defining moments of our lives, like birthdays, weddings, and vacations. Images often spark memories and stories, overwriting any truth we may seek. With the increasing ease in the use of artificial intelligence and digital manipulation, images help create your desired memory. Using analog photographs from my family archive, I re-record them as digital files and pixelate each image by hand, blurring some areas while others remain visible, shaping the image into a new narrative. This process mirrors the reconsolidation process, altering the image and memory each time. Many of these images are not my own, but the time spent with these memories has given them new life and stories in my mind. While these images may not be from your family, the curated moments are the same. Memory is flexible and always changing; the only constant is the stories we tell ourselves.” – Epiphany Knedler
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that the Exposure Photography Festival is situated on land adjacent to where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. The traditional Blackfoot name of this place is “Moh’kins’tsis”, which we now call the City of Calgary. This is the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. It is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. We honour and acknowledge all Nations, who live, work and play in Moh’kins’tsis, help steward this land, and honour and celebrate this territory.