©RemiJin Camping

Today we are continuing to look at the work of artists who I met at the 2024 Society for Photographic Education conference. Up next, we have He Will Be Missed by RemiJin Camping.

RemiJin Camping is a Filipina-American photographic artist based in South Florida. She holds two Bachelor degrees, one in Music and one with a concentration in Photography, and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida. In the Fall of 2022, RemiJin became an Assistant Professor of Photography at Barry University, where she teaches analog, alternative processes, and digital photography.

RemiJin’s artwork thoughtfully creates photo-based pieces and projects that explore themes of memory, emotions, and stories narrated with objects and landscapes. The need to make these works stems from an awareness of the limited existence humans have and wanting to give visual life to these narratives. Sometimes they are her own story, be it a happy or sad experience, and other times they are another person’s story that she has connected with and has been moved to tell.

A Critical Mass 2022 top 200 Finalist, RemiJin has shown her work nationally and internationally, most recently with Women Photographers- Shared Documentary Narratives at the HistoryMiami Museum in Miami, FL, Toiling the Land at ArtsGarage in Delray, FL, The City of Pembroke Pines 19th Annual Art Competition at Studio 18 Art Complex in Pembroke Pines, FL ,  in New Realities SPE 2024 Member’s Exhibition at SIUE Art and Design Gallery in Edwardsville, Illinois, Color Culture: Our History and Heritage through Fiber at the Thousand Islands Art Center in Clayton, New York, the MIFA Gallery in Miami, Florida in the group exhibition, The Chronicle is the Fable for these Timid Eyes, and at the CAMP Gallery in North Miami in the FAMA group exhibition, This is Not a Doll’s House.

RemiJin is represented by The Contemporary Art Modern Project (CAMP) Gallery in North Miami, Florida. She is a resident artist at Studio18 Art Complex in Pembroke Pines, FL.

Follow RemiJin on Instagram: @remijinphotography

©RemiJin Camping

He Will Be Missed

We live our lives day-to-day, paying little attention to our home surroundings, familiar and unchanging. The TV in the living room, the stove for meals, the bathroom to fulfill the necessities. Then one day that foundation is rocked, obliviousness now awareness; things are exactly the same but forever changed. The death of a loved one changes us, especially a parent and in this instance, my father-in-law.

This was my husband’s first trip home to El Salvador in 14 years and my first visit; a somber visit as it was for the funeral. The arrival home was a jarring one, for both him and I, in different ways. He was happy to see his mother, grieving for his father, and sad to see how his home was the same yet not, rundown and empty without his father. For myself, the loss brought back a flood of emotions from when I had lost my father, yet it was coupled with the need to support my family during their time of grief. It was this overwhelming feeling of grief surrounding us that compelled me to document their home, a need to encapsulate this moment where time stood still for everyone.

Grief doesn’t magically disappear, it changes, morphs, and fades with time. With these photographs, the labor intensive polymer photogravure process made it possible to physically work through the heavy emotions, each step deteriorating the details. The final print no longer like the original photograph, yet containing the time of grief we knew. These photogravures are a documentation of decayed memories and heavy grief from seeing that nothing has changed and yet things will never be the same.

©RemiJin Camping

Daniel George: You write that this series resulted from your first trip to El Salvador for your father-in-laws funeral. What motivated you to pick up your camera in that moment and make photographs within these spaces—ultimately resulting in the images that we are seeing?

RemiJin Camping: What really motivated me to start taking photos of my husband’s home was his reaction to seeing it for the first time in years, over a decade. Every room, every corner, had something that caught his eye and he would remark something along the lines of, “oh wow, this is still here”, or “I can’t believe this still works”, or “I remember this” and so on. There was surprise, curiosity, and in many cases sadness in his voice, especially when seeing how rundown his childhood home had become. I felt compelled to document these resurging memories of his and new memories for me. Photographing his home was a reaction to everything that was happening, but also a way of taking back his childhood home with us when we returned to Florida. It was a good thing I did document his home when we were there; in the years since that visit his mother has repaired and completely remodeled the home, with only a few memorable items and one piece of furniture still around.

©RemiJin Camping

DG: Tell us more about your choice to print these as photogravures.

RC: I had photographed these originally in color and digitally, the intent to have the imagery but not quite sure about the final outcome. I like to marry process and content, and many times using what I call hybrid methods, digital and analog combined. Prior to traveling to El Salvador, I had decided to learn how to make polymer photogravures, intrigued by the complicated process using digital positives and an aquatint screen. When I came back from El Salvador and started learning the gravure process and seeing how photographs come out in the final print process, it just made sense with how I was feeling about these photos from my husband’s home. Each step of the process changed the original photograph, morphing, decaying, and fading away little by little. The labor intensive process and the changing of the image felt to me like how grief feels, overwhelming at first, but slowly more bearable and fading in intensity.

©RemiJin Camping

DG: When I look at these, I can’t help but wonder about your husband’s perspective and relationship to these spaces and objects. It’s interesting to think about the intersection of your first impressions and his distant, childhood memories. While making these photographs, did you think about/discuss these converging narratives? Any insights you’d be willing to share?

RC: When I first started taking the photos at his home, my husband couldn’t quite understand why I felt the need to take the photos, and there certainly was at times annoyance from him with how long I would take during the photographing process. He was overwhelmed with the loss of his father, his mother’s grief, the return home, and the funeral. I was a spectator on the outside, not really able to help with anything other than moral support and hugs. I couldn’t help but take photos, fascinated with everything as it was new to me and something I could do, documenting my husband’s home. It was an intuitive process to make these photos, all stemming from being the captivated listener to the stories my husband had told before and was telling in the moment; old broken objects like TV’s where he first learned how to play Super Mario, the kitchen where he would anxiously wait for his after school snack, all part of a museum of memories.

©RemiJin Camping

DG: In this project and others you have completed, you address themes related to memory and emotion by documenting objects, spaces, and landscapes. How do you feel that these topics are manifest in your subject matter.

RC: We as humans share so much in common; happiness, grief, ideas, loss, joy, relationships, career changes, etc. We all also surround ourselves with objects we accumulate during our lifetimes or interact with in some way shape or form. We store them within the spaces we occupy on land we see, visit or travel through. All extensions of ourselves. Objects are rife with connections of memories and emotions. For instance, a busted and dusty TV sitting for years forgotten by the original user suddenly jars a memory of first playing a video game, the feeling of happiness resurging from that time of happiness. What I photograph might have a specific person the story relates to in its origin, but by interpreting the story and keeping the imagery to objects and place, I aim to connect whomever might be viewing the photos to something that resonates within them, as they have with me.

©RemiJin Camping

DG: In your artist statement, you write that these images represent “decayed memories and heavy grief from seeing that nothing has changed and yet things will never be the same.” I’m always curious about how photographs that were made in response to a tragic event, like these, evolve over time in the eyes of the maker. How do you respond to them now—and this statement?

RC: These photos still hold true with that statement. This was a specific moment in time that was documented and the photos hold within them a history that can’t be changed. As time continues to move forward, the people involved do change. My husband doesn’t have the heavy constant grief, now it has morphed into a bearable sadness that crops up periodically. For him these photos are now a nostalgic collection of his childhood home. I still view these photos as grief from that time, but now removed from the immediacy of the moment the prints have become objects connected to the memory of that first visit to El Salvador. They really are a documentation of history, with things continuing to never be the same.

©RemiJin Camping

©RemiJin Camping

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©RemiJin Camping