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Jessica M. Kaufman is a nationally exhibited artist who received an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 2003, and a BA from Yale University in 1995. She is a recipient of the Bacon Dee Grant, a winner of The National Graduate Seminar Fellowship from The Photography Institute at Columbia University, and has had work included in gallery and museum shows throughout the US, including New York, Boston, and Chicago. She currently lives and works in New York City.


No one
bears witness for the
witness.

–Paul Celan


I approached this series as I have all others: with the intention to investigate, or call attention to, how identity shifts and changes when catalyzed by experience, and more dramatically, trauma. For this project, I again was drawn to the landscape as muse, but uncharacteristically chose one loaded with meaning, burdened with a history so cumbersome that I initially was afraid to pursue it.

The title of this series, Panopticon, refers to an 18th century circular prison model that allows for secret surveillance of all prisoner activity through natural illumination. The subject matter is the grounds of Nazi concentration camps. Far from being documentary in nature, these photographs are decontextualized excerpts through which I sought to dispose of most recognizable clues to the specific places, and focus on the surrounding, and surviving, environments in order to recast them as sites for new meaning. The resulting images, mutated through a technical process that relies on decay as an operative force, do suggest trauma, but don’t require a reaction that encompasses a response to iconic horror. Instead, I make this work in the hope of inspiring a dialogue between the viewer and imagery that fuses indeterminate disturbance with transcendent beauty.

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101 x 76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76

"Untitled" from "Panopticon"

2006
Silver gelatin print
101x76