Krista Gay is an artist living and working in New York. Gay received their BFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photo/Video and their MFA from Columbia University with a focus in moving image. Their practice focuses on the complex relationship between Blackness and its viewer(s). Much of their photographic work involves appropriated imagery from sources such as family archives, media fragments, and the digital remains of images once familiar or cherished by someone unknown. These images arrive already burdened with voyeurism, commodification, and historical baggage. Gay aims to reclaim them. 

What objects become witness to everyday life? Rather than presenting photographs as flat images, Gay is interested in experimenting with embedding images into domestic materials and architectural elements commonly found within the home. Mirrors, window blinds, doors, curtains, shelving, and other household objects function as image-bearing surfaces, transforming familiar items into repositories of memory.

During their time at GlogauAIR, Gay is using photography from their family’s archive along with appropriated stills and video fragments from Black film, television, and popular media to examine how images of Black life move between the private and public spheres.