About the Artist
I've been involved in an ongoing project, titled "Stanislaus", for the past two years. During this time, what began as a documentary project about a place in California evolved into something completely different--it started to occupy a strange middle ground. I realized that this place I was trying to "document" with photographs existed more vividly in my imagination than it possibly could in reality. Just as we imagine far-off places, I imagined a Stanislaus--full of tragic and romantic gravitas--and in looking for it, I created it.
This portfolio of photographs expresses the collision between my imagined Stanislaus and the real place. Through a series of investigations and open-ended collaborations, the project has morphed into an elaborate form of play--resembling more the production of a fictional film than a documentary. Despite its somber tone, I hope it's not a tragedy that's emerging, but an intersection of storytelling modes--documentary and fictional--that leaves its subject open to revision and possibility. For there is not only discomfort and unrest in transition, but playfulness, reinvention, a blurring of boundaries and new hybrid forms.
Jennifer O'Keeffe received her BA in English Literature from Barnard College in New York City and received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2007. She lives in San Francisco.
