How does one move through life with the scars of the past? When I was ten, my mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack. I couldn’t understand where she went or when she would return. Just as I began to comprehend this loss, my father died. I was without support from my family and community. I was lost.
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Without a Map reimagines this time that’s deeply rooted in my memories. Visiting my childhood home, synagogue and family plot provided an entry into this personal retelling. Working with family photos, creating new images from my past and turning the camera on myself, I found the means to evoke, reinterpret and address unanswered questions born from early imprints that were buried long ago.

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About Marsha Guggenheim

Marsha Guggenheim is a San Francisco based fine art photographer. Her passion is storytelling and using images to re-imagine the past and inspire the present. Marsha spent years photographing and documenting the lives of formerly homeless mothers. This work resulted in the monograph, Facing Forward, highlighting thirty-five women through portraits combined with stories of their life experiences. Over the past five years, Marsha has been working on her series, Without a Map. The project draws on recreating images from memories and ephemera to reconstruct her personal history. Without a Map looks at the life-long impact of loss on a child and how both trauma and joy affect the human soul.

Represented by Corden Potts Gallery, Marsha is a 2021 and 2022 Critical Mass finalist. Her work has been shown in over fifty exhibitions and is included in numerous private collections. Feature articles and interviews ranging from Black & White Magazine, All About Photo Magazine, Fraction Magazine, F-Stop Photography Magazine and Lenscratch. In 2023, Marsha will be featured in a solo show at The Griffin Museum of Photography and will also participate in a six-artist group exhibition at the Harvey Milk Photography Center in San Francisco.

The Griffin Museum of Photography

Griffin Museum of Photography

‍67 Shore Road, Winchester MA 01890

March 2 – April 16, 2023

https://griffinmuseum.org

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