Creative - NOMINEE: Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez

This project is a project that accumulates everything I imagined, remember, falsely remember and fantasized about who my father was and could be. It anchors on fantasy and commemorates all the possibilities of who he could be today. The project started as a direct response to lingering questions I've had of him for most of my life but quickly became a direct reflection of all the hopes I have of what a father could be. It has raised so many more questions about memories, trauma and how it relates to memory and desire of what I lacked before starting on this project. I realize in beginning this project that I held more power than I ever thought I had when it came to him. I had the power to pick and choose what qualities I wanted in him and what I could do without. How do you show "hard-working" in a photograph? How do you show empathy in a photograph? I aspire to do this with this on-going project and make him all of these things.

About author:
Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez is a U.S Central American artist from Prince George's County, Maryland. She received her BFA at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA and her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work is based on notions of memory, personal and historical amnesia, and migration that trace the veins of the Central American diaspora. In an attempt to fill gaps within her personal history she creates images that validate truth, false memories and fantasy. She currently works and lives in Austin, Texas.