Coriana Close has served as an Assistant Professor and Photography Area Coordinator at The University of Memphis. She has a BA in Cinema Studies with Honors in Studio Art from Oberlin College, and an MFA in Photography from The University of Arizona. Coriana works in both still photography and appropriated layered video. Her work has been noted in publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer, UA News, Athens News, Chronicle Tribune and the Republican American. She has exhibited and lectured in universities and galleries across the United States.

I create visual research projects with both still and moving images. I source information from various archives, then collage compositions using Photoshop. Conceptually my projects focus on social justice with an emphasis on state sanctioned violence against people and the natural world. After the Flood combines Southern Louisiana landscapes with mugshots from the region to question the relationship between human destiny and the surrounding environment. Poisoned layers mugshots from Genesee County Michigan and Jackson Mississippi with Google Earth images of their respective watersheds. The composites also include photographs of lead polluted drinking water which has long been linked with an increase in violent behavior. These cities illustrate the physical manifestations of environmental degradation. A similar theme of landscape neglect is visible in my series Sacred to the Memory in which I researched and documented dozens of forgotten cemeteries in Shelby County Tennessee. It is often said our society will be judged by how it treats the least among us. My work is an attempt to reimagine our current relationship with the landscape to enrich those in need and the land that supports us.