As it Was Give(n) to Me

The ICA, in partnership with Tennessee Triennial: RE-PAIR, presents the complete opus of Stacy Kranitz’s (American, b. 1976) body of work As it was Give(n) to Me (2009-2022): an expanded artist-based archive of photographs, collected images, text, and sculptural objects that traces exploration and extraction in central Appalachia. These documents reflect on our relationship to representations of reality and the inherent flaws and ruptures in constructed notions of truth.

Working within the documentary tradition, Kranitz makes photographs that acknowledge the limits of photographic representation. Her images do not tell the “truth” but are honest about their inherent shortcomings, and thus reclaim these failures (exoticism, ambiguity, fetishization) as sympathetic equivalents in order to more forcefully convey the complexity and instability of the lives, places, and moments they depict. Poised between notions of what is right and what is wrong, she uses photography to open up narratives that confront our understanding of culture.

This presentation of As it was Give(n) to Me is curated by Rachel Waldrop, Director and Curator of the ICA Chattanooga. This presentation is supported by a 2022 Annual Artist Grant from the Puffin Foundation, and generously supported by Tri-Star Arts.