Ann fessler biography

Ann Fessler is an author, filmmaker, video-installation artist, and a professor emerita at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Visual artist, filmmaker, and author Ann Fessler has spent nearly four decades creating work that addresses the gap between official histories and lived.
Filmmaker and author Ann Fessler turned to the subject of adoption after being approached by a woman who thought Ann might be the daughter she had surrendered.

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Fessler, Ann 1949-

PERSONAL:

Born 1949. Education: Ohio State University, B.A.; Webster University, M.A.; University of Arizona, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Rhode Island School of Design, Two College St., Providence, RI 02903. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Artist and educator. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, professor of photography and videography. Has held residencies at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; the Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada; Nexus Press, Atlanta, GA; and Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY. Has exhibited at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD; and California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Radcliff Institute fellowship, 2003-04; grants from Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island Council for the Arts, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, LEF Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts,

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Bio – Ann FesslerFor more than 35 years, Ann Fessler’s work has focused on the stories of women and the impact that myths, stereotypes, and mass media images have on their lives and intimate relationships. Fessler turned to the subject of adoption in 1989 after being approached by a woman who thought Ann might be the daughter she had surrendered for adoption forty years earlier. Though the woman was not her mother, Fessler—an adoptee—was profoundly moved by the experience. The conversation that ensued changed the focus of her work. Since that time she has produced three films, numerous audio and video installations, and a non-fiction book on adoption. Between 2002-05, Fessler conducted over 100 interviews with women who lost children to adoption during the 28 years that followed WWII, when a perfect storm of circumstances led to an unprecedented number of surrenders. Her short films on adoption have won top honors at festivals and have been screened internationally. Her book, The Girls Who Went Away (Penguin Press, 2006) was chosen as one of the top 5 non-
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Description and Reviews
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
In this deeply moving work, Ann Fessler brings to light the lives of hundreds of thousands of young single American women forced to give up their newborn children in the years following World War II and before Roe v. Wade. The Girls Who Went Away tells a story not of wild and carefree sexual liberation, but rather of a devastating double standard that has had punishing long-term effects on these women and on the children they gave up for adoption. Based on Fessler’s groundbreaking interviews, it brings to brilliant life these women’s voices and the spirit of the time, allowing each to share her own experience in gripping and intimate detail. Today, when the future of the Roe decision and women’s reproductive rights stand squarely at the front of a divisive national debate, Fessler brings to the fore a long-overlooked history of single women in the fifties, sixties, and early seventies.
In 2002,