Talk

MFA Visual Narrative presents artist and faculty member Stacy Renee Morrison to discuss her ongoing project, “The Girl of My Dreams.” In 2002, a small leather trunk containing the preserved keepsakes of a 19th-century woman was discarded on a sidewalk in Lower Manhattan. Thus began Stacy Renee Morrison’s self-proclaimed love affair with Sylvia DeWolf Ostrander (1841 – 1925).

For almost two decades, Morrison has been on a quest to weave together Sylvia’s life in the 19th century and reimagine it in the world of today through photography, silkscreen and writing. 

Stacy Renee Morrison often forgets which century it is. As fate would have it, she met her 19th-century best friend in the form of a trunk abandoned on a New York City street. These two women, who were born 133 years apart, began a collaboration called “The Girl of My Dreams.”

Morrison received a grant from the Rhode Island Council of the Humanities to research and make photographs about the trunk’s owner, Sylvia DeWolf Ostrander. She has exhibited her photographs nationally and internationally including New York City; Rhode Island; Philadelphia; San Francisco; Toronto; Parma, Italy, Cordoba, Argentina; and Jeonju, South Korea. Her photographs have been published in The Creative Independent, Harper’s Magazine, Dear Dave, Feature Shoot and Photography Quarterly. Most recently, in 2020, Morrison exhibited “Sylvia: A 19th-Century Life Unveiled” at the Merchant’s House Museum in New York City. 

Morrison is currently working on an illustrated narrative nonfiction book about the project. She also recently launched a clothing line, Sylvia, made of up-cycled vintage clothing and accessories that are all screen-printed by hand.

Morrison teaches in the MFA Visual Narrative and BFA Photography and Video departments at the School of Visual Arts. She is a still-life photographer who makes quiet, polite and sometimes macabre photographs. She never misses an opportunity to dress up as a 19th-century woman.

The Storyteller’s Series at the School of Visual Arts invites visual storytellers from all walks of life, careers and media to share their work, professional practice, personal development and creative approach to visual narrative. This series is open to the public and SVA students.

Presented by MFA Visual Narrative and the SVA Library.