School of Art Newsletter Fall 07 vol. 2 issue 1

Distinguished Alumnus:  Ann Fessler

Ann Fessler is a Professor of Photography at Rhode Island School of Design. Her significant contributions to the field of photography have been recognized by the Harold Jones Distinguished Alumni Committee and she will be honored as the award’s 2007 recipient this fall. A specialist in video and audio installation art, she received her BA in Art from Ohio State University, her MA in Media Studies from Webster University, and her MFA in Photography at the University of Arizona.

Her artistic career, grounded in the study of photography and subsequently addressed in video, installation art, and non-fiction writing, include the gap between lived history and recorded history and the problems of representing others in words and pictures. Her work explores and challenges issues of family and identity from a feminist perspective.

Fessler has been called a pioneer in the realm of reproductive justice for her bestselling book, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, which tells the stories of unmarried women who were coerced into placing their children for adoption, both by their families and a society that insisted single women could not be good mothers. Her own personal journey to find her birthmother’s hometown stimulated her research into the subject of adoption and shaped her visual exhibitions and writing. The Girls Who Went Away grew out of her joint audio and video installation exhibitions, “Everlasting” and “Close to Home”.

Her photographs, installations, and films have been exhibited in major museums, galleries, and film festivals in the US and abroad, including the DeCordova Museum, the Walters Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the California Museum of Photography. Festival screenings include the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Taos Talking Picture Festival, and Women in the Directors Chair International Film Festival.