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About Jessica Ingram:
Jessica Ingram was born and raised in Tennessee. She received degrees in
Photography and Political Science from New York University and her MFA from
California College of the Arts. She was included in 25 Under 25, (PowerHouse
Books 2003) and American Photography 20. She contributed to What We Want Is
Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art (SUNY Press 2004). Along the Way,
a video she completed with the Cause Collective was a 2008 Official Selection at
the Sundance Film Festival. Recent portfolios of her work have been published in
OjodePez in conjunction with PhotoEspana and GUP magazine. Jessica’s work is
motivated by her desire to understand how people relate, what they long for, and
what motivates the choices they make. Along with her art practice, Jessica develops
and leads community based arts programs, most recently Fostering Art, a
photography and writing program for foster youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Jessica lives between Nashville, TN and Oakland, CA where she is an Assistant
Professor at California College of the Arts and works with PixelPress Magazine.
Jessica’s work is shown internationally.



A Civil Rights Memorial
Four years ago, I wandered downtown Montgomery in the sweltering heat, picked up a walking tour
trail, and found myself facing a large, ornate fountain, situated on a brick pavilion. A Historical Site
sign said that I was standing on the former Court Square Slave Market, where slave traders sold men,
women, and children to the highest bidder. It presented cold hard facts, detailing dollar values for
slaves at the time and how none were given last names.
I was speechless. The fountain was erected at a time when this site was not considered for it’s
history, the sign placed in a gesture of reconsideration. The language printed on the sign was so
void of sentiment – in no way testifying to the experience and meaning. I watched people pass by
and wondered if they knew or thought of the history beneath their feet.
Curious about what I might find at other historical sites (marked or unmarked) through the South, I
began my search. I have been traveling through Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and
Louisiana, and documenting sites where Civil Rights era atrocities, Klan activities, and slave trade
occurred.
I am interested in these sites, their memorials or lack thereof, how some have faded into the
landscapes, while others awkwardly stand out, but seemingly go unnoticed. How do the affects of
this history still reverberate in these communities and in the landscape? I hope to create this context
in my photographs, and to remember these individuals and events through the images I am taking.
My larger body of work is about families and communities. This project is absolutely about that. It is
a meditation and a recapturing. These images are renewed representations, a new memorial to these
events. My hope is that the viewer will consider the relationship of this history within current
contexts.
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