Unraveling Light and Time
Photographs by Pamela Zaremba and Síle Marrinan
In Unraveling Light and Time, photographers Pamela Zaremba and Síle Marrinan examine how light, memory, and personal history intersect to shape our evolving understanding of family. Through image-making that blends documentary and poetic approaches, the exhibition explores how memory is not fixed but layered—revised, revisited, and reimagined over time. What begins as personal inquiry expands into a broader meditation on the emotional and ephemeral nature of remembering.
The origins of the project were rooted in a shared desire to reconnect with the sensory landscape of childhood and to reflect on how domestic and familial identities are constructed. To begin the process, Zaremba and Marrinan spent two days together in a camper van on Cape Cod—a quiet, rural setting by the water that offered both physical and emotional distance from everyday life. This period served as both a retreat and a catalyst: a way to step outside of routine, reconnect with their creative practices, and open themselves to the emotional undercurrents of light, space, and memory.
The camper van became both a literal and metaphorical container—an intimate, shifting space where light moved slowly across surfaces and time seemed suspended. The interior light, in particular, served as a key inspiration, casting a soft, nostalgic tone that evoked the textures of past summers, family road trips, and childhood daydreams.
Bringing along a curated collection of vintage props—including household objects, vacation memorabilia, and materials from their own family archives—the artists began to build visual narratives that responded to their shared themes. These artifacts were not just visual aids, but emotional triggers: tactile reminders of a past that is both personal and collective. The process of arranging, photographing, and recontextualizing these items allowed each artist to explore the tension between emotional memory and the historical record.
Photographically, the exhibition features a range of techniques—some images are constructed, others more spontaneous; some are intimate studies of objects or light, while others suggest staged family scenes or imagined moments. The blending of real and fabricated imagery mirrors the way our memories operate: layered, selective, and shaped as much by feeling as by fact.
Unraveling Light and Time invites viewers into a space where memory becomes visible and fluid, a space in which family is not seen as a fixed narrative but as something continuously shaped by light, place, and the act of looking. Through their collaboration, Zaremba and Marrinan offer an evocative meditation on the ways we carry the past with us—through objects, images, and the fleeting quality of light that stirs remembrance.
Pamela Zaremba
Pamela Zaremba is a photographer based in Westport, Connecticut, and a member of the Beacon Artists Union Gallery in Beacon, New York. Her work is driven by a deep desire to reveal the beauty hidden within the everyday — to invite others to see the extraordinary in what might otherwise go unnoticed.
Through her photographs, Zaremba captures fleeting moments that evoke memory and emotion, creating an intimate dialogue between the viewer, the subject, and herself. This connection extends beyond portraiture into still life, where the objects we choose to keep close become quiet reflections of who we are. In her images, even the simplest things carry a sense of presence and sentiment, transforming still moments into deeply personal narratives.
Síle Marrinan
Síle Marrinan is a photographic artist whose work is grounded in an enduring fascination with light and its capacity to transform what we see and feel. Her practice is an intuitive exploration of how light, like memory, shifts, fades, and reappears in altered forms.
In her recent work, Marrinan turns her lens toward the terrain of memory, reflecting on how it is neither fixed nor linear but layered and reimagined over time. Using projected family slides and handwritten documents as both subject and surface, she constructs images where past and present coexist. These photographs—often made at dusk, when light itself feels uncertain—become meditations on remembering: emotional, imperfect, and transient.
Through this process, Marrinan transforms personal fragments into shared reflections, inviting viewers to consider how the act of remembering continually reshapes the way we see ourselves and the world around us.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.