Rebecca Copper (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Midwest. Her practice centers lens-based theories and socially engaged praxis. She is an alumni of Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA program. Most recently, her short film, Colitis (2021), was chosen for the Film Diary NYC 2.0 2022 film screening in Bushwick, NY and she was awarded a curatorial residency at Wave Pool in Cincinnati, OH. She is currently associated faculty at the Ohio State University.
In her practice, Rebecca interrogates the intersections of preservation in forms of photography, education, textbooks, and archival institutions. Each of these mediate perceptions by a dominant hand or authoritative body dictating the camera, classroom, textbook production, or archival acquisition. Meanwhile, she considers the politics of vulnerability and care. Rebecca is interested in how different versions of reality and history live against one another; how the framing of what is perceived can alter as the protocols to preserve time shift. Her work centers the process of creating a photograph or other media as modes of exchange. She begins from her place of existence as the source of curiosity; she questions her own experiences and extends those questions outward as a meeting place. Pushing against the imperial history of the camera, she uses photography as a process for relationship building and learning. She often begins with the camera and then replicates her process, removing the camera, thus becoming unguarded with a different kind of attention to what is being exchanged.