Echotombs is a photographic collection that explores ideas of personal memory, oral storytelling, archiving, and photographic materiality.

Inspired by the lineage of photogram artists such as Anna Atkins and Man Ray, Stephanie Leneé Vance converses with past tradition while imagining new methods of photographic permanence facilitated by the blockchain.

This project is derived from Stephanie’s personal collection of objects that represent memories of life events spanning from childhood to the current day. The artist associates each work with a life memory, each encapsulated in an image that exists in an uneven balance of legibility and loss.

To make these works, Stephanie placed each object from her collection onto an expired sheet of darkroom paper and exposed them in sunlight. The exposed paper was then scanned into digital space, using the light of the scanner itself as a tool for degrading the image and mimicking the process of slow forgetting. The resulting works are visual echoes of foggy resonance, delicately and vaguely encapsulating cherished memories.

While once a series of physical prints set to expire and disappear forever, Echotombs now exists only as digital objects permanently archived on the blockchain.

Each piece in the collection includes an unlockable link to download an accompanying audio recording from Arweave. These recordings are oral stories, conducted by the artist, that share the memories and meanings that each picture contains.