Tracie, from the "A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living with HIV" series, from "The Birthday Club" portfolio

Maker Berridge, Mary American, b. 1964

Date1996

MediumInkjet print

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number2020:22.6

About the Artist
Mary Berridge makes images that explore how people create meaning in the face of physical, social, and cultural adversity. Her empathetic portraits deconstruct stigmas of typically overgeneralized groups of people by portraying individuals in her photographs as singular and complex beings. “Photography is a way of making reality visible,” Berridge said, “spurring people to think about something and maybe question their assumptions about it.” This diversification of representation is central to the ethos of her practice. In this spirit, Tracie (1996), in the MoCP permanent collection, is from Berridge’s series A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living with HIV which presents the stories of 30 women navigating life with such a stigmatized illness. The series was published as a book in collaboration with writer and activist River Hudson in 1997 and was awarded the Lange-Taylor Prize.

Mary Berridge received her BA from University of Michigan (1986) and MFA from Yale University (1991). Her photographs have been published in various magazines and journals including The New York Times; CNN; TIME; and Harper’s. Berridge’s awards and grants include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1997); the LensCulture Portrait Award (2019); and an Aaron Siskind Fellowship (2018). Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York; De Young Museum, San Francisco; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and others.