Annalise Reinhardt

Onggi (옹기), Naejangsan National Park, New Years Day, January 2018

Onggi: ‘earthenware crock’ 

Pungmulori Dancers, Damyang, South Korea, January 1, 2018 

Nongak - meaning “farmers' music” is a Korean folk music tradition that includes drumming, dancing, and singing. Most performances are outside, with dozens of players, all in constant motion. Pungmul is rooted in the dure (collective labor) farming culture. It was originally played as part of farm work, on rural holidays, at other village community-building events, and to accompany shamanistic rituals, mask dance dramas, and other types of performance. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pungmul)

Video I made using archival footage from my father.

These photographs belonged (and in some way still do ) to my grandparents. They are their memories. After receiving custody of these photographs, of which I define as art objects and relics, I return to them to ponder their history and the narrative that had not been inscribed nor pictured. In arranging these images in diptychs offering both the visual and textual information, I invite the viewer to think about authorship within the context of creating our personal record. These pictures and their inscriptions, privately and intentionally authored, provide me with small but significant additions to my understanding of their way of life, culture, and history. This aspect of photography I find most fascinating - the ritual of record making and the fact that something will be left behind for others to cherish, or not. I wanted to bring attention to these objects because they are testaments to the infinitely existential nature of the photographic medium.