Buffalo Remembrance Project

A weathered multi-pane window in a deteriorating interior, its textured glass diffusing soft, hazy light. A vine with green and yellowing leaves grows through a broken lower pane. Two worn, rectangular objects rest on the crumbling windowsill. Beyond the glass, trees are visible in soft focus.

Photo: Thomas Walsh

Dates

January 23, 2026 — Spring, 2027

Location

The Richardson Olmsted Campus
444 Forest Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14213

Description

On November 21, 2025, artist Kimberly Chapman and UB Art Galleries organized the Remembrance Project Community Day, a one-day public event held at UB Anderson Gallery. Community members were invited to share personal objects connected to women relatives who were once patients at the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane between 1880 and 1974. Letters, photographs, clothing, and other intimate belongings were photographed onsite by advanced undergraduate photography students in the UB Department of Art. The Buffalo Remembrance Project consists of those object photographs presented in dialogue with photographs of the Richardson campus, also taken by the students.

The images are paired with brief written reflections drawn from interviews with family members, tracing sixteen individual lives from among the thousands of women institutionalized at the asylum over nearly a century.

Photographers: Eric Maurice, Lily Borer, Simone Tallchief, Sydney Jackson, Thomas Walsh

Project Coordinators: Cassandra Cook, Instructional Support Technician in Photography UB Art Department & Anna Wager, Curator, UB Art Galleries