Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen: The Concentration Camp Series
Sondra Peron
- Nov 2009
Does a landscape have memory? Can we, after sixty-plus years, still see a place of great human suffering? How does a photographer capture an image of our collective historical memory of the Holocaust?
Photographer Sondra Peron, in her exhibition, Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen: The Concentration Camp Series, on view at the Vermont Center for Photography beginning November 6, explores these questions in an attempt to provide some answers.
This body of photographic work began in the spring of 2004. Using vintage Kodak Hawkeye Brownie cameras dating from the late 1940s, photographer Peron traveled to a small town on the north bank of the Danube River called Mauthausen in August of 2004. The following year, photographs taken at Auschwitz and Dachau revealed more atrocity landscapes-- from pine forests to gas chambers at these concentration camps used by the Nazis during WW II.
Artist Biography: Sondra Peron grew up in Connecticut and resides in Northampton, Massachusetts. She holds her M.F.A. in Photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated as an Ada Comstock Scholar from Smith College with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1998. Since 2001, she has worked as arts administrator for the Northampton Arts Council, and since 2004, as a teaching assistant in the art history department at Smith College. Ms. Peron is currently teaching an advanced photography class as an adjunct at her alma mater Northwestern CT Community College.
Ms. Peron has produced a significant body of work using vintage cameras, most notably the Brownie Hawkeye manufactured by Kodak from the late 1940s to early 1960s. Her photography has been exhibited in solo, two-person and group shows throughout New England, Maryland, Tennessee, and China.
Her work has been published in The Sun Magazine, and can be found in the collections of the Mortimer Rare Book Library and various private collections. Peron has received grants from foundations and cultural councils in support of her photographic work. She has served as a guest artist and lecturer at the Smith College Museum of Art, Darrow School, Northwestern CT Community College, Holyoke Community College, and Skidmore College. Her work may be viewed on her website at http://www.sondraperon.com.
Sondra will present an Artist’s Talk on Thursday, November 12, at 7:00 PM.
A selection of images from the exhibit
