Without a Map by Marsha Guggenheim

How does one move through life with the scars of the past? When I was ten, my mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack. I couldn’t understand where she went or when she would return. Just as I began to comprehend this loss, my father died. I was without support from my family and community. I was lost.

Without a Map re-imagines this time that’s deeply rooted in my memories. Visiting my childhood home, synagogue and family plot provided an entry into this personal retelling. Working with family photos, creating new images from my past and turning the camera on myself, I found the means to evoke, reinterpret and address unanswered questions born from early imprints that were buried long ago.







Marsha Guggenheim
Marsha Guggenheim is a San Francisco fine art photographer. Her passion is storytelling, exploring in-camera techniques to create images that reimagine the past and inspire the present.

Over the past five years, Marsha has been recognized for her award-winning series, Without a Map. This series of images are recreated from her memories using old family photos, making new images representing her childhood and turning the camera on herself.

Other bodies of work include: Facing Forward, a series that documents the lives of formerly homeless mothers; With This Ring, an album of candid pictures from the daily weddings at San Francisco’s City Hall; 65 Miles Per Hour, a series shaped from remembrances of Marsha’s father; and a number of additional series exploring unexpected moments through street photography and portraiture.

Marsha is represented by Corden Potts Gallery, is a Critical Mass Finalist and is included in numerous private collections both domestically and internationally. She has shown her work in over fifty exhibitions. Recent exhibits include a solo show at The Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, an exhibition at the Harvey Milk Photography Center in San Francisco, a winning Storytelling Series at Photonostrum in Barcelona and as an exhibitor in the DeYoung Open 2023.

Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Black & White Magazine, All About Photo Magazine, Fraction Magazine, F-Stop Photography Magazine, Art Doc Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and Lenscratch.
www.guggenheimphotography.com
@marshagug