Marcie Hancock

Marcie Hancock is a photographer and occasional writer focusing on regionally based projects in southern and central Appalachia, as well as the greater South. Her work investigates issues of materiality, exploring the dialect and connectivity of humans and non-human matter. This ‘empathetic ethnography’ is largely rooted in the ideals of ecological feminism. Personal narratives are hidden within broader themes and cultural concerns including habitation, gender, melancholy, isolation, and movement. She graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Photography in 2014, and was named a finalist in the 2013 New York Photo Awards for the photographic book “A Good Man (Is Hard To Find).”

marcie_hancock_1_o“First Day of Spring,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit
marcie_hancock_2_o“Dig Deep,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit

And The Creek Don’t Rise

And The Creek Dont Rise is the working title for an on-going investigation of the environments I have occupied throughout my youth, adolescence and young adulthood in the Southern Appalachian region. The work is split into two narrative paths, or sub‐series, one concerning thick-skinned femininity and my struggle to determine what makes “a good woman,” and another concerning movement and the prominence of automobile transportation in the Appalachian mountains. These narrative case studies run parallel to one another but are in many ways connected. The first, Blues Jumped The Rabbit, is an investigation into the heavily matriarchal culture that I was raised in, but has been largely portrayed by the media as male dominated. This attempt to shift the protagonist away from the overly romanticized Daniel Boone character to the land itself, and the women who have tended its communities, has it’s basis in the ecofeminist ideas of Emma Bell Miles. Miles believed humans are embedded in places, and their subsequent communities include non-human elements as well. It is connected to a love of land and place that is nearly spiritual. This project has much further to go.

marcie_hancock_4_o“My Satin, Mama’s Silk,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit
marcie_hancock_6_o“The Bedroom Set,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit

The second narrative, Orange Blossom Special, is focused on the relationship the Appalachian region has developed with automobile culture. Mountains are barriers for movement, and this particular area has been attributed to having one of the more difficult examples of geographic isolation due to lack of or poor transportation networks. The idea of mobility has become connected to the idea of progress and in many cases, regional priorities have been neglected for local, short-term benefits and roads remain unfinished. Whether or not the new roadways would benefit the communities positively is undetermined. This body of work, in contrast (or counterpart) to the other, highlights and is curious about the male prominence in the realm of transportation, and has occurred mostly because of my own personal fixation on fleeing and movement.

marcie_hancock_8_o“Unruly Strands,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit
marcie_hancock_9_o“The Rooster, Not The Hen,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit
marcie_hancock_10_o“Love, Linda, Peggy, Lucy,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit
marcie_hancock_11_o“Shadow of a Doubt,” 2014, from Blues Jumped The Rabbit
marcie_hancock_12_o“Sugarloaf Mountain,” 2013, from Orange Blossom Special
marcie_hancock_13_o“Ostrich Blue,” 2014, from Orange Blossom Special
marcie_hancock_15_o“Rust,” 2012, from Orange Blossom Special
marcie_hancock_16_o“Top of Catawba Mountain,” 2014, from Orange Blossom Special
marcie_hancock_17_o“Susan’s Bus Route,” 2014, from Orange Blossom Special
marcie_hancock_18_o“Three Generations of Goodwrench,” 2012, from Orange Blossom Special

To view more of Marcie’s work please visit her website.