What Did the Deep Sea Say

When Sara Macel discovered a suitcase full of photographs belonging to her deceased grand­mother, she unearthed an unknown chapter in her family history that led to Hollywood, Florida. In this seaside town that appears lost in time, Macel retraces her grandmother’s footsteps while also photographing the land­scape, her mother, and herself. By interspers­ing medium­format color photographs with her grandmother’s black­and­white images from the 1940s and her mother’s color snap­shots from the 1970s, a visual conversation emerges.What Did the Deep Sea Say explores the private lives of women dealing with their own unique circumstances at different points in time while swimming in the same waters. New York­-based visual artist Sara Macel’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the collec­tions of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Light Work, and others. She is the recipient of the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship.

Sara Macel (b. 1981 Houston, TX) is an artist and photographer based in Queens, NY. She received her BFA in Photography + Imaging from NYU (2003) and her MFA in Photography, Video & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts (2011). Her photographic work is narratively based and often deals with themes of the archive, family, memory, place and time.
Macel’s work has been internationally exhibited and is in various private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Cleveland Museum of Art, Harry Ransom Center, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Sara was named one of PDN's 30 Photographers to Watch in 2015. She is a recipient of the Individual Photographer's Fellowship Grant from the Aaron Siskind Foundation and was an artist-in-residence at Light Work in Syracuse, NY in 2017.

Her first monograph, May the Road Rise to Meet You (Daylight Books), was named one of PDN’s best photo books of the year. A traveling exhibition of that work was shown in solo shows around the country. Her new series What Did the Deep Sea Say received an Editor’s Choice award at CENTER Santa Fe.

Sara Macel is currently the Photography Program Coordinator and Lecturer at the State University of New York’s Rockland Community College. She has previously held academic positions at CUNY Kingsborough Community College and the School of Visual Arts. Macel lectures around the country at academic and cultural institutions including New York University, Syracuse University, University of Houston, Point Park University, Brooklyn Information & Culture (BRIC), Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York, Photoville, PHOTOPLUS Expo, and the Houston Center for Photography.