LAUREN MILLER
Paired With: Alexia Kathryn Tsairis
Dear Alexia
In Alexia’s work, I saw passion, genuineness, and dedication. She loved what she did and pursued it with no holds barred. As someone who is desperately in love with photography and storytelling, also free-falling into the unknown of that world, I could relate. In creating this piece I wanted to connect across something we both knew, loved and shared, a snow day in Syracuse, which I used as the background. I layered images I made throughout my time here of just when I was being silly, carefree and very much twenty-something with my friends. Especially now as a graduating senior these nights feel limited, important. It is also important to me that when we remember someone, we remember them for all they were, not just the nice stuff, but their faults, failures and messiness as well. I pictured her in what would have been her senior year, the moments of sadness, unsureness, exhaustion, goofiness and beauty that would have greeted her. I also wanted to touch on the feeling of a lost senior year due to the pandemic. While these are two very different losses, they share a sense of grief, which is also a sense of grief we all can relate to. My time at college has been tumultuous, to say the least, and unbelievably beautiful to say the most. I wanted to convey both. I hope that this whole exhibition gives you a space to pause, to sit with your own loss and grief and to know that you are not alone in it.