My parents died within a few months of each other. They lived in the same house for 60 years, from the day they were married until their deaths. Once they were gone, I was left with my grief, memories of our lives together, and all their possessions, including a well-organized archive of family photos.

In my series, “Memory Building,” I projected those vernacular photographs onto the surfaces of my childhood home in the same locations that they were originally made and rephotographed the scene. By fusing photos from the past onto the present-day walls, I unearthed six decades of engrained memories and captured my family’s vanishing presence that once permeated our mid-century suburban home—the container for so much of my personal history.

Annette LeMay Burke’s work is exhibited widely throughout the US and internationally at institutions such as Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Candela Gallery in Virginia, Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Oceanside Museum of Art in California, HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts in Dresden, Germany, and Association of Photographers in London.

In 2023, Burke’s images were selected for Earth Photo and displayed at London’s Royal Geographical Society, five Forestry England sites and the Lishui International Photography Festival in China. Her work was chosen for the 2022 Critical Mass Top 50 and the LensCulture Critics’ Choice 22. In 2021, she was awarded first place in the LENSCRATCH Vernacular Photography Exhibition, won the Imago Lisboa Photography Festival in Portugal, and was a semi-finalist for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today in Washington DC.

Annette LeMay Burke was one of Photolucida’s 2022 Critical Mass Top 50 artists. This image was selected to be included in PCNW’s 2023 exhibition, Imminent Existence, which showcased one piece of each of the Top 50 artists.