Holding Time

In this playful project, which has equal doses nostalgia and catchy technique, Panebianco, armed with Kodachrome slides made by her father, travels to the locations of their making and ’reinserts’ them and herself into the landscape. The curtain is pulled back, so to speak, through the visual trope of her hand holding the original Kodachrome, simultaneously allowing the viewer to see a broader landscape as well as the framing of the family slide. This is a re-photographic survey project tinged with family memories. For those reasons, and more, this is a project worth spending time with. – Darius Himes, International Head of Photographs, Christie’s from Lensculture Critics Choice Top Ten Award 2020   The series of work is extremely simple in its process, overlaying old slides onto present landscapes of the same locations, yet its strength is perhaps how easily it can be understood and the shared feeling of sympathy that comes with it. The finger holding the slide in every picture upholds the undeniable human presence. As the people from the old pictures overlap with the landscape today, two timelines merge with each other. The unchanging views and the shifting ways of living, the long passing of time is compressed into one image and the functions of “record” and “memory” of photography are simultaneously activated. In such a way, the photographer and her family’s personal memories evolve into a ubiquitous image for all. – Mutsuko Ota, Editorial Director, IMA from Lensculture Critics Choice Top Ten Award 2020   Memory works in mysterious ways. We often remember events as still photographic images that have taken up permanent residence in our mind, overtaking the event itself. Catherine Panebianco recognizes this phenomenon by combining significant images from her past with contemporary scenarios, blending the two so that they exist simultaneously in the present. – Rebecca Morse, Curator LACMA from Lensculture Critics Choice Top Ten Award 2020   We start with a wonderful series about family legacy and memory by Catherine Panebianco. Catherine’s series, No Memory Is Ever Alone, recently garnered Critical Mass’ Top 50, plus a boatload of other awards. For her project, she considers the two worlds of the past and present, creatively merging them into one. The journal Psychological Science suggests that taking a photograph of something may help us to remember the visual aspects of the moment better, even if we never even look at the image ever again, but the good news is that Catherine is looking at images again with a particular appreciation of worlds and people she knows well…and she brings us along for the ride. – Lenscratch, November 2019   When I saw Catherine Panebianco’s No Memory is Ever Alone it spoke to me, to a place where my own family history is connected by flat yellow boxes of 35mm transparencies, and my father making photographs, and slide shows on the wall of the family room. The materiality of family photographs melded with an exploration of what those family photographs record, which struck a chord and opened up a place deep in me. We know photography is magic. This body of work effectively draws me in to that alchemy and reminds me of its beautiful complexity. I hope supporting this project allows it to reach others who will similarly feel uplifted and engaged by these photographs. - Juror Dr. Rebecca Senf, CENTER Project Launch – Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography & the Norton Family Curator of Photography, Phoenix Art Museum