Stacy Kranitz has developed an extensive body of work over the past six years while she has been living and working in the Appalachian mountains of North America. Entitled As it was Give(n) to Me, it combines her photography with an archive of collected images, text, drawings and objects that traces the histories of exploration and extraction in the area, and examines representations of reality and the inherent flaws and ruptures in our notions of the truth.
Speak Your Piece is the first book to be produced using some of this material. It combines a selection of her photographs from central Appalachia with extracts from a local newspaper column, in which residents are given space to contribute anything that is on their minds.The contributions, which address issues such as the decline of the coal industry, the prevalence of drug use, family relationships, love, lust and loneliness, range from the heartwarming to the heartbreaking, the comic to the tragic. For Kranitz, what is remarkable is how they cross beyond the barriers of county lines and mountains to speak collectively about our experience on this earth. They give voice to the uniqueness of rural mountain life while also communicating the customs and rituals of human existence. - Here Press