Melissa Kreider, Interviewed by Conner Gordon
Representation is not only made in the click of the shutter or the framing of a print. Rather, it gains its resonance from who sees an image, and to what effect. Echoes of this view can be found throughout photographer Melissa Kreider’s latest work, Remnants. Kreider’s project examines the facets of sexual and domestic assault—the places where the crimes occur, the bureaucratic processes used to document them, and the survivors who face what comes next. Crucial to Remnants is the work’s presentation; Kreider recently crowdfunded a newsprint version of the project, a copy of which will be sent to every member of Congress. In doing so, Kreider not only makes visible the aftermath of sexual and domestic assault—she makes it visible to those in a position to catalyze change.
I spoke with Kreider in October 2017, in the final days of her crowdfunding campaign for the Remnants newspaper. The following excerpts of our conversation highlight her work’s intersections with activism, agency, and representation beyond the lens.
CG: Could you give me a sense of how you came to photography, and in the case of Remnants, photography that looks at social issues?
MK: I quit everything else in my life. I don’t care about anything else, there’s just something that’s really satisfying about making a picture, to me: that is, capturing something. So that carried on through my teenage years, and of course it was an obvious decision to go to college for photography, because I was like, “what else am I going to do?” But I don’t care about anything else.
I knew I wanted to go to grad school to make work that would cause change, because I’m a very empathetic person, not only given my own personal experience with assault, but also the nature of who I am. I have this horrible ability to feel for others—it’s not horrible but, you know, I carry a lot sometimes, and it’s heavy, and I knew I wanted to make work that would make some sort of change. And with writers, you always tell them, “write what you know.” So it was this natural progression to make photographs about something I too have experienced, because I can empathize on a different level that way. So that’s how I started making Remnants.
CG: For someone unfamiliar with your work, how would you describe Remnants?
MK: Remnants is a linear narrative of the investigation of the realities of sexual and domestic assault. It ranges from the sites of sexual and domestic assault, to the parts of a rape kit, to the backlog of rape kits, which is 700,000 in the United States, to DNA testing labs. It ends with photographs of survivors themselves. This work does not serve to trigger, or create a negative response, but it serves to educate the viewer.
CG: With that linear narrative, what do you hope your viewer takes away from it at the end? What’s that main nugget of information?
MK: The main nugget would be to empathize with survivors of assault, and almost put themselves in their shoes. It’s almost like virtual reality through photographs, because you’re going through these steps, seeing this landscape, you’re seeing these steps. And especially with the steps with the rape kit, you’re thinking about your own body, you’re thinking what that would be like to have that test done with your own body. It’s very jarring. So I think relating to yourself and if you were going through that, that is my biggest goal.
CG: That brings me to a question about how you’ve related to your own work as a survivor. I’m interested in hearing about everything from going to the sites where these crimes occured to interviewing the survivors you photograph. If you look at the project, you might not initially know that connection between you and your work, so I’m interested in your perspective on that.
MK: In terms of the work, I definitely wanted people to look at it and not know that about me, because it’s not about me. It’s about everyone else that I’m photographing, and it’s about so many different survivors. My role in the work as a survivor is secondary to me. It’s important, but I don’t always mention it. It’s a vital part of my talk, because so often I get asked, “why do you make the work?”
That was the biggest question in grad school, and it took a long time for me to learn how to say the sentence that, “I’m a survivor of sexual assault, this is why I make the work.” It’s been a journey, it’s been so hard for me to say that sentence. But I think still I want to take myself out of it, because the steps that are shown in my work are so sterile. I wanted to approach them that way, and not be so emotionally attached to them.
But in terms of how I have experienced making the work, it’s been like a rollercoaster. It’s really hard, every time I walk into a room that is full of backlogged kits—I don’t cry, but I feel the weight of it, anyone would. I still can’t get through that in my talk, I still can’t through that statistic that there’s 700,000 [untested kits] without getting emotional. It’s really hard, but I don’t know if that has to do with me being survivor, or me being a person who cares about people.
But I have to say that meeting these women who are survivors has been incredible. I’m only five years out from my own experience, and some of these women I’m working with—they’re not all women—some of these survivors that I’m working with are decades out. It’s been so incredible to speak to them, because I never thought I would be okay. And to see them being okay, or as okay as they can be, it props me up.
CG: Have you shown the work to the subjects you’ve been photographing, and what has their reaction to it been?
MK: I give them the option to rescind their work from the project at any time if they somehow feel uncomfortable about their photograph being included, whether it’s safety or their own personal emotions. Because trauma is very consuming, it can change at the drop of a hat. That has happened, but in the making process the collaboration is so elevated that they’re pretty happy with the results. We talk about it before we even make a photograph. We talk about whether they want to be anonymous or not, we talk about where they’re going to be photographed, what time of day, and what they’re going to wear. We plan everything out, so they’re usually pretty happy. I give everyone a print of their photograph, just because I have nothing else to give them. So yeah, they are usually pretty happy.
As the work has been published it’s been a struggle, because a lot of my subjects have been like, “Oh my god, this is being published, I’m freaking out.” A lot of them haven’t told their families, and if that’s the case I ask wherever it’s published, especially online, I’m like, “Just take it down, please.” I want to be as understanding as possible. I don’t want to force anyone into anything, outing them a survivor, basically.
CG: What were some of the biggest ethical challenges in making this work?
MK: The first thing that I encountered—I started making pictures of the sites. And I was printing the addresses on the prints, the house number, the street name. And as I went on, and I started to work with people in the advocacy field, who have been my biggest source of mentorship and research, I realized that that was unethical. I say I’m such an empathetic person, but I’m also a researcher, and I’m also a photographer. I’m a flawed human, I can’t do everything right all the time.
But my approach to putting the addresses on the prints was showing, “This is a concrete place, it exists, I can show you the address.” I was thinking of it from a viewer’s point of view, because I am an artist before I’m a survivor. And I didn’t realize how invasive that was. And when I say that, it was a semester, I never showed the work anywhere, I didn’t publish it with the addresses, but I really stood behind it. I was like, “people need to know where these places are, that they exist. They need to know that these are real things I’m pulling from, I’m not just making it up.”
But then I started talking to people in the gender and women’s studies program, and I started talking to the advocates in the women’s shelters, and they were like, “you really shouldn’t do that, that compromises people’s safety.” That’s when I realized they were correct. I didn’t have any resistance to that, it just kind of hit me, like, “fuck, they’re right. Oh my god, this is not ok.” So I stopped doing that. And that was one of the first encounters I had where I was thinking about ethical issues.
As I was talking about before, it all fell into place with the linear narrative, so from that point on I made that a priority, the ethical issues. I changed all the numbers on the rape kits, I gave my subjects agency, that’s my priority I think. Because I am making them into a spectacle, basically, something to be looked at, and that can be weird after you’ve had something taken from you. As a survivor of assault, I don’t want to do that in this project.
CG:In what other ways was it weird, where else did you feel tension while working on it?
MK: Being a survivor and a photographer at the same time, that’s where the tension is. Like I want to make something that is good and aesthetically pleasing. It’s an ethical issue, turning this stuff into something that’s worth looking at is strange, because these are people. And I feel sometimes like it’s exploitative, but that’s why I try to walk that line of giving agency and privacy and not putting addresses on the prints, I try to walk that line. It really is the biggest priority, like I’ve lost sleep over it, I’ve done so much research on how to figure out how it will be visually powerful, but also protect everyone involved. So that’s the weirdest part, because I am also so personally invested as a survivor.
CG: I’d love to talk about the newspaper. I saw the project on Kickstarter and thought it was really interesting, because when photography interacts with social justice or social progress, it’s usually representation, showing an issue. I think it’s really interesting you’re taking that additional step of “I’m going to make sure the right people get shown this issue.” I’m interested in how you came about that idea.
MK: I actually ran a Kickstarter December of last year for a book. It’s actually in the trunk of my car, it’s bad, so I’m glad I don’t have it. I mean, it’s not terrible; to us, it would be good, because a fine art book is this precious object. I naturally went there as a fine art photographer, I was like, “I’m going to make this book, it works as a book.” Especially with contemporary photography, books are so important right now, that I was like, “I’m going to make this object, it’s going to be a powerful object, and they’re going to care about it.” But almost thankfully the Kickstarter failed, and my goal was $10,000 because books are expensive and there’s lots of members of Congress, but I raised $6,700, which was quite a lot of money. It failed, which was good, actually, because the book was nice, but it was this precious object, thinking of myself as a Congressperson, I’m not going to respond to that as a Congressperson.
So I went back to the drawing board, and it had a lot to do with funding. A lot of this work has to do with money, and I don’t have the money to just be like, “here’s a book for 700 people,” or 585 I think. So I was like, what is the cheapest way that I could do this? And that was the newspaper. And it’s almost perfect, because they are familiar with the newspaper format, they hopefully read the news—we’re going to assume here that they read newspapers—and so if this falls on their desk, they’re not going to be intimidated by this precious object that is a hardback book. It’s going to feel accessible, and I can also print 1000 copies for $1,000. It’s so cheap, it’s insane. And it still has all the elements that the book had, it still has the transcribed 911 calls, it still has all the photographs and all of the statistics that were in the book, it’s just in a different format.
CG: Looking towards the future, this is presented as a very outward-looking projects. So with your future projects, whether they be outward-looking or more autobiographical, as you start to work on those, how do you see your work on Remnants influencing those projects?
MK: My personal experiences inform everything that I do. I actually just made a zine. My life exploded this year, I had a miscarriage in March, and my fiance left me the same day, which blows. He’s trash, it’s great that I didn’t marry him, but I made a book about it. So a theme in my work is that all of my personal experiences inform the work.
My new body of work that I started is in the same vein of Remnants, but I still have that degree of separation where it’s not about me. You know, you don’t see me in the work, but my involvement is there. The new work is about families who have lost loved ones to intimate partner violence, juxtaposed with photographs of women who have been incarcerated for killing their abuser.
I’m really interested in these extreme cases where, “Where were the police? Where were the advocacy programs?” And it’s not pointing the finger at all, because this is such a nuanced and complex problem. I want to look at these situations.
A lot of it is curiosity, I’m interested in the human experience and what happened in these situations. And I’m thankful that didn’t come to a head in my own life experience, but I think this is bigger than me, these are bigger issues than anything I experienced. I was very privileged in the way I could get away, the way I could move, and some people don’t have that opportunity. It’s new work, so I’m not great at talking about it.
There’s so much red tape, which is my work. Like, with the emails that I had to send [for Remnants], it’s even worse this time. I don’t know why I make it so hard on myself.
CG: I’m interested to hear your own thoughts on how much power you think photography has to change minds, or influence policy.
MK: For me, I’m so biased, but I think photography is the medium to use to convince people of something. Even if photographic truth is a lie, which I tell my students, every time you make a photo you’re manipulating something. You’re choosing what to put in that frame, you know, it’s all bullshit. But people still view photos as “a photograph is worth a million words,” or whatever. It’s such, frankly, bullshit, and it’s not true, because you’re making those decisions, and I think photography can be used in a way where you manipulate people. I don’t know if that’s the right word, it seems much more draconian than I mean it, but you’re changing people’s perception of a certain subject. I think they believe that photographs are truth, and they believe that photographs are the end-all-be-all.
So forget Photoshop, I’m not talking about advertising or changing people’s bodies, I’m talking about documentary photography. And while I don’t change anything but private information in my photographs, I think that plays into the ability of photography to do that. People still believe that photographs are real life, and it’s not, like I’m making a decision every time I make a photograph with my viewer in mind. I’m like, “How can I change this person’s mind?” So I think that it’s powerful in that way above all other mediums. As an artist, you’re always making these decisions.
I hope I don’t sound like a manipulator, it’s hard to put into words. I’m making this work to serve a purpose, and it is to educate somebody, but I also want to make them feel empathetic. It’s weird.
CG: Do you consider Remnants to be finished, and what does the future look like for this project?
MK: Presumably I could do this project forever. I could keep emailing police departments, I could continue photographing survivors, and right now I am, just because my new body of work is taking a lot of time to get access to. It’s ready to be a newspaper, it’s ready to be shown, so in that way it’s finished. I don’t think I’ll ever let go of it if I continue to get access to police evidence rooms and stuff like that.
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