Karen Pape

Lately, I have been wondering what happens when we die.   Where do we go?  Last summer, I began to research my family of origin for insight. A DNA test showed that I had  over 90,000 genetic matches on Ancestry.com, and I began to understand that, in a very real sense, we DO go on, if we have children, via our exponential genetic dispersal.  We are both expanded and diffused over generations.  I am still connected to my ninth great grandparents through tiny bits of code, although it is diluted and reimagined in a seemingly infinite variety of ways.

But what does that mean as we look backwards?  Are we just bits of other people’s code and merely reinventions of old memories?  Is any part of us unique?   My early vivid experiences with Déjà vu tell me that it is conceivable that genetic memory will be discovered to exist.  Perhaps it is what causes me to tear up at the sound of a lonely Appalachian fiddle. That is one of the many gifts the people in these images have given me.

This project arose from these thoughts and ideas. “Leavings” involved making transparent positives of my ancestor’s portraits and creating chlorophyl prints on native tree leaves indigenous to the valley where they lived for 200 years. I then took the leaves and photographed them as they dried and disintegrated.  I photographed the leaves over several months and created 10 scrolls of five images. The process was quite intimate as there were many failed attempts due to heat punctuated by endless rain, and I began to feel that these people were speaking to me and telling me their stories.