Wedding Party
Photograph
Wedding Party
From What We Carried
2012
Inkjet print
13 × 19 in. (33 × 48.3 cm)
Gift of James W. Lommasson, 2017
2017.0045.0001
TextBuilding on previous work with US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Jim Lommasson explored another kind of readjustment anxiety: the plight of Iraqi and Syrian refugees from the wars in the Middle East. He sought out émigré communities in Portland, Oregon, where he asked people to allow him to photograph an item that they had brought with them to the United States. Then he made a print and asked each participant to write why the item was important to them on his print. Often the object chosen was a snapshot or family photograph, the inscription a poignant reminder of photography’s stake in the operation of memory and identity.
