Jennifer Greenburg

Revising History, is a series of manufactured images that I have created by replacing the individuals in vintage found-negatives with images of myself. I commandeer source material from someone else’s life thus taking over their memories to call my own. The work is a performance that results in a series of photographs that are entirely counterfeit. I reference the gestures within the original image as a means to take ownership of that moment. I appropriate the mood and emotions, or lack thereof, of each event. In the decisive moment, I become a musician, a mother, a corpse– even though I am none of those things. There is something inherently false in most snapshots. The moments captured are often idealized. And when we look back at our own images, we co-opt the fantasy that the photograph has created for us. We replace our original memories with something photography has sold to us. Reality is replaced with a nostalgic appropriation. It is with this in mind that I have created a body of fictitious images that depict counterfeit memories.