Amanda Russhell Wallace

Amanda Russhell Wallace is a lens-based multimedia artist. Her work ranges from documentary family photography to experiments with time-based media. The work primarily locates itself in the archive (records, cemeteries, oral histories, etc.) as a site for “family reunion,” personally and more broadly. Within this, her frequent practice of what she terms “historical collaging” uses remnants of speech, texts and imagery to present and interrogate various loci of dissociation and disremembering within the formation and performance of selves across time. Ultimately, she is interested in the im/mutability of the self (personal) and selves (collectives) and how their visual representations, primarily via photographic imagery, impact modes of Black visuality.

Wallace’s work has been shown and presented nationally and internationally in a variety of venues—galleries, conferences and symposia—including the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, El Museu Valencià de la Il·lustració i de la Modernitat (MuVIM), Newark Museum of Art, Flux Factory and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA).

She received the 2020 Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University Documentary Essay Prize for her series “Mourning Breaks,” a project that weaves together family photography and poetry.

As a member of the Art Department faculty, Wallace is developing the lens-based media area of the department. Students will use an expanded, interdisciplinary approach to photography and other lens-based media. Photography’s wide range of implications and practical uses throughout society require a multifaceted understanding of and engagement with the photographic image. Thus, students will combine technical and conceptual concerns to become informed practitioners (and consumers). 

 Website: www.amandarwallace.com