Danforth shows examine the workings of memory
Diane Hemingway, "Signs," 2023.
Boston Globe
By Mark Feeney
FRAMINGHAM — All photographs show the past. Pastness is what the medium does. Click the shutter, and what had been a now gets preserved as a then.
Sometimes that pastness is consciously used in the service of history, a shared past, or memory, a personal past. A conscious use of pastness informs three shows currently at the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University. They run through May 24.
Ten photographers are in “Memory is a Verb.” (Why the lower-case “is”?) They are Elizabeth Bailey, Annette LeMay Burke, Dena Elisabeth Eber, Sarah Hadley, Diane Hemingway, Susan Lapides, Lori Ordover, Jennifer Pritchard, Rosalie Rosenthal, and Aline Smithson. All have several works on display. The title indicates the importance of memory as inspiration for the photographers…