Lauren Shaw: Traces of Impermanence

Lauren Shaw: Traces of Impermanence
Category: Photographer Monographs & Art Books
Author: Lauren Shaw
Publisher: MW Editions
Publication Date: September 2026
Print Length: 96 pages
Language: English
Price: paid paid paid

Traces of Impermanence is a photographic project by Lauren Shaw about aging, memory, and the physical changes that affect both people and the natural world. Its starting point is personal. As a child in the American South, Shaw watched her mother carefully apply hairspray and silver glitter before going out, maintaining a precise appearance even while raising children and spending time at Daytona Beach. Her mother’s clothes, shoes, and accessories were also arranged with care, reflecting an effort to preserve control over the passage of time.

That sense of control changed after her mother developed Alzheimer’s disease. As her appearance and routines became harder to maintain, Shaw began to examine her own assumptions about beauty, identity, and aging. The photographs record her body through scars, bruises, and other marks, treating them as evidence of experience rather than flaws to conceal. The project connects physical change with memory and with the ways people construct a sense of self.

Images of Shaw’s body appear alongside photographs of plants, landscapes, and other elements of the natural world. Growth, decay, damage, and renewal form recurring subjects throughout the series. The pairing of human and natural images avoids presenting aging as an isolated personal problem. Instead, it places the body within wider biological cycles that affect all living things.

The book includes Shaw’s own writing, alongside essays by art critic Lucy Lippard and writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams. Traces of Impermanence is published by MW Editions in 2026. Shaw, who lives and works in Boston, is Professor Emerita of Photography at Emerson College and has exhibited in institutions including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Library of Congress. Her wider practice includes photography, documentary film, and projects focused on memory, place, and social history.

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