BIO
Linda C. Smith is a visual artist and educator based in New York City. Experimentation with materiality is a large component of Smith’s artistic practice and approach to teaching. Her work as an educator is heavily influenced through her time teaching photography to survivors and former perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where she lived for five years. This experience heavily influenced her work as she explores themes of loss and regeneration.
Smith’s work has been exhibited in the United Nations headquarters in New York City, as well as the United States and Rwandan Embassies. Additionally, her work has been featured in exhibitions at James Madison University, Notre Dame University, and Marshall College, where she recently had a solo exhibition, titled Bloody Soil.
Smith received her BA from Syracuse University and her MFA from the University of Connecticut.
STATEMENT
In my work, I explore themes of loss, remembrance, and regeneration. I believe, as individuals, we are living histories with the ability to empathize with those who have experienced loss and trauma. By acknowledging personal and collective trauma we allow humanity to create conditions for working through layers of wounds and unlocking pain that has been in our systems, societies, and earth for centuries. Through my practice I bring to light memories of events from our past into our present. I am not telling or retelling any stories, I am solely remembering individuals and places that history may have forgotten.
In my current series, Bloody Soil, I commemorate loss by photographing and repurposing images of places that have experienced trauma. I began this process a few years ago after visiting a modern day park that was once a battlefield, and in that moment felt transported back in time. Hearing the echoes of violence and cries of those who stood here one hundred and sixty years ago, I felt compelled to engage in a conversation with the landscape. That initial dialogue has since evolved into an ongoing body of work that connects me to those who came before.
I am interested in how the blood that once covered these landscapes has been recycled back into the earth. By repurposing the images that I photographed into a contemporary framework, I bring a sense of nostalgia into the present day, allowing viewers to identify their own narrative within historical moments. I believe this series is relevant to a country with a convoluted past and an uncertain future.