Krista Svalbonas: What Remains

Twenty pieces on view from the series What Remains and Displacement showcase a deeply researched and timely creative endeavor from the Philadelphia-based artist. Archival letters and folk textile patterns of the artist's ancestors are cut into original architectural photographs made across dozens of trips to Lithuania, Latvia, and Germany. Along with humble portraits of surviving refugees, the projects illuminate the story of Baltic displaced persons in post-war Europe and later under Soviet occupation, and their will to preserve a fractured cultural heritage. Translating the universal experience of longing for what’s been lost, Svalbonas' process-forward work intelligently speaks to this near-forgotten history and provokes consideration of the impact of contemporary forced migrations.

Krista Svalbonas (American, b. 1977) has held recent solo exhibitions at the Copenhagen Photography Festival, the Tallinn City Museum, Estonia, the Museum of Textile and Industry, Germany, and the National Museum, Lithuania.. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Cesis Art Museum, Latvia, the Gregg Museum of Art and Design, North Carolina, and the Woodmere Art Museum and Temple University, Philadelphia, among others. Recent awards include a Center for Photographic Art Artist Grant (2022), Baumanis Creative Projects Grant (2020), Rhonda Wilson Award (2017), Puffin Foundation Grant (2016) and a Bemis Fellowship (2015). She is an associate professor of photography at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.