S. Billie Mandle

For ten years S. Billie Mandle photographed confessionals in churches throughout the United States. She visited Catholic churches in small towns and large cities, slowly and carefully creating images that depict the visible – and invisible – traces of people and communities, histories and dogmas. Photographing from the position of the penitent, she used a large format camera and only available light. The images suggest the contradictory impulses that define these dark rooms and shape this intimate yet institutional ritual forgiveness. As a queer woman, raised Catholic, S. Billie Mandle has long had a complex relationship with the Church. In making these images, Mandle grapples with questions of faith and forgiveness – and finds hints inscribed in the small dark rooms of the confessionals.