The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation

Project Title: Can I Hold You?

Toni Pepe creates prints and three-dimensional assemblages from discarded newspaper images, family snapshots, and obsolete photographic equipment, investigating how photography shapes our understanding of time, space, and self. Her practice explores the layers of information a print conveys beyond its image—whether through the presence of text, subtle stains, or crop marks—each detail offering insight into the photograph’s journey and its significance as a physical object. More than static images, photographic prints capture and suspend our likenesses and histories, bearing the marks of time and physical interaction.

Pepe is the Chair of Photography and Associate Professor of Art at Boston University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as Blue Sky Gallery, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). Her work is included in several permanent collections, including the MFA Boston, the Boston Athenaeum, Fidelity, the Boston Public Library, Candela Books + Gallery, The Magenta Foundation, and numerous private collections. She was a resident at Frans Masereel Centrum, a MacDowell Fellow, and was recently named the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Fellow.