TITLE: Origins

Over the last year, my mother endured countless invasive and painful procedures after a doctor discovered multiple cysts during a mammogram. One morning, my mother complained of a deep ache emanating from her breasts. She was visiting a physician later that day and wanted me to help her indicate the origin of her pain. Tenderly holding a black pen in one hand, and holding her shirt with the other, she laid a delicate trail of marks across her chest. The dark spots constellated across her skin, unveiling the cosmos within her cysts.

She showed me her pain, and I saw the stars.

Later, I delicately felt my own chest, wondering if her universe was hiding within my skin

The core of my photographic practice stems from a place of pure empathy- a desire to share my story within the collective human experience. My visual trajectory has always centered on the disparate nature of my own family, and my desire to create a sense of intimacy among us.

For most of my childhood, my family’s life was scattered over countless households. My faded memories of these places merely composed a fragmented idea of home. Photography finally provided a way in which I could eternalize these fleeting moments. As a way to cope with these disparate feelings, I created a narrative hoping to join these places and reconnect with my family.

My photographs are relics of loss; traces of a family that I tried to piece back together.

AUTHOR: Rachel Jump (United States)

Rachel Jump (b. 1991, Chicago, Illinois) is a fine art photographer living in Chicago, Illinois. Her black and white images explore ideas of home, belonging, memory, and absence, and have been exhibited throughout the United States. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA PH’14), where she received the Harry Koorejian Memorial Scholarship and the Haining Family Scholarship. Her photographs are a part of the RISD Museum Special Collections, where she was also a visiting artist in conjunction with the exhibition, America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now. Rachel is represented by Alibi Fine Art in Chicago, Illinois, which held her first major solo exhibition in November 2015. Her work has also been featured in various publications, including LENSCRATCH, Feature Shoot, The Ones We Love, LDOC, and Papersafe. She made her curatorial debut at Filter Photo with Aint-Bad Metropolis: Chicago, which was a group exhibition that highlighted a selection of artists making photographs in the Chicago area. Rachel is currently working as the Communications Coordinator for Mana Contemporary Chicago and as an editor for Aint-Bad. She will be a FIELD/WORK artist-in-residence at the Chicago Artists Coalition from October 2016 – April 2017.