Rebecca Arthur, 114 Mechanic Street, 2016. From the series The House That Built Me.
Rebecca Arthur, an alum of the Department of Photography & Imaging and current ArtistYear AmeriCorps member in Philadelphia, was recently interviewed by the Carnegie Museum of Art regarding "The House That Built Me", a project that began as her senior thesis while here at NYU. The article:
After the sudden passing of Rebecca Arthur’s mother in the summer of 2014, still grieving, she left her childhood home of Fayetteville, New York, to begin school in New York City. Arthur, who had a difficult relationship with her family, used the time away as an excuse to forget about life in Fayetteville. A few years later, when her sister gave birth to a son, Arthur decided to put the pieces back together. She saw her nephew as the bridge to a new beginning, one that could prevent the family from falling apart. After spending several years away, she felt the need to reconnect with her childhood and re-establish a relationship with her siblings and her stepfather. Arthur’s images depict her family’s new dynamics in the wake of her mother’s death and her nephew’s birth. With low natural light and the soft grain of the film, what Arthur captures is beautiful and raw. There is palpable care and love within this family, yet just as present is the tender wound of loss.