Producing Authenticity

The American Civil War remains a part of social dialogue approaching the 150^th anniversary of its end. Performance through reenactment has been a critical mode of relaying the history of the bloodiest war on American soil. These reenactments, in large part, rely on archival photographs to create 'authentic' representations of the war.

Photographers, however, often manipulated these images and their accompanying captions so that they would have more emotional resonance with viewers. Inspired by Mark Klett's work with rephotography, Nemer's photographic installation will juxtapose images and their captions from the historical archive with images gathered during contemporary reenactments, calling into question the idea of authenticity and the archive.