Katie Basile

Photojournalist and Documentary Storyteller

Heritage (ongoing)

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School: University of Montana

Heritage

In May of 2020 I received a collection of photographs and sermons written by my Great-Grandfather who was a Methodist priest in Wyoming nearly a century ago.

As I explored the archive, patterns and similarities emerge. I saw my mom’s handwriting and my aunt’s bone-structure. I found shared habits, perspectives and values. The patterns run more broadly than individual and familial. Through this archive I became aware of history repeating itself.

In his sermons he laments over racism in America and the high maternal death rate. When the Pandemic of 1918 hit, my Great-Grandparents suffered the loss of their first child.

“Who will say that this is not a period of supreme testing of men, institutions, nations and races,” he wrote almost 100-years-ago.

Much of his writing is as relevant today as it was nearly a century ago. In America, it’s as if we are living the same story over and over again.

Through photographic responses to this archive I explore the following questions: How does my Christian ancestry inform me as an individual? How do religious institutions perpetuate the cyclical nature of our colonial history? What new understandings about the past, present and future of America can be discovered?

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Public Project

Heritage (ongoing)

Copyright Katie Basile 2024

Updated Apr 2024

Summary

In May of 2020 I received a collection of sermons written by my Great-Grandfather who was a Methodist priest in Wyoming nearly a century ago.

Through photographic responses to this archive I explore the following questions: How does my Christian ancestry inform me as an individual? How do religious institutions perpetuate the cyclical nature of our colonial history? What new understandings about the past, present and future of America can be discovered?

Katie Basile

Aug 12, 2020

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