Our shared and common humanity is assumed but not always evident. Making work inspired from my own personal experiences, I look for ways to further and deepen our thoughts on this connection.
In Embrace, Los Angeles based photographer Rohina Hoffman reflects on the theme of uncertainty while combining two of her photographic projects. In Gratitude, made during the pandemic, is a typology of portraits celebrating food and family and how we find comfort in times of unease. Generation 1.75 is a visual memoir of identity, belonging, and the complexities of acculturation.
Embrace will be on display at the Griffin until May 28, 2023.
Tell us a little about your background.
I grew up in a family of doctors spanning three generations. I also became a doctor, specifically a neurologist. Despite our emphasis on science, everyone in my family also had artistic pursuits. Since high school,I have always been involved with photography and decided about ten years ago to focus on it.
Can you explain the thought behind your show, and why it is presented in the way it is?
I wanted the show to be a sensory engaging experience. There are the photographs of course, but there is also text (both prose and poetry), scent, in the form of a reed diffuser, and my book, Embrace, to hold and touch and skim through.
What feeling do you hope to leave your viewers with when surrounded by your work?
Walking into the Griffin Gallery, I want viewers to be wholly embraced by the art and to feel alive. I hope they that they feel and connect with the photographs and text elements, and walk out of the gallery with a softer more hopeful heart.
What is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?
I am currently obsessed with Maira Kalman and her books (most recent being “Women Holding Things”.) Her combination of witty text and bold colorful images, her simple playful approach about the human condition is at once personal and universal. I can read them over and over again.
ABOUT ROHINA HOFFMAN:
Rohina is a fine art photographer whose practice uses portraiture and the natural world to investigate themes of identity, home, adolescence and the female experience.
Born in India and raised in New Jersey, Rohina grew up in a family of doctors spanning three generations. While an undergraduate at Brown University, Rohina also studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design and she was a staff photographer for the Brown Daily Herald. A graduate of Brown University Medical School and resident at UCLA Medical Center, her training led to a career as a neurologist.
A skilled observer of her patients, Rohina was instilled with a deep and unique appreciation of the human experience. Her ability to forge the sacred trust between doctor and patient has been instrumental in fostering a parallel connection between photographer and subject.
Rohina published her first monograph Hair Stories with Damiani Editore (February 2019) accompanied by a solo exhibition at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School. Her monograph, Hair Stories, is held in many notable public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty, Cleveland Institute of Art, and over twenty-five university libraries.
Her second monograph, Embrace, with Schilt Publishing was just released October 2022 (Europe) and January 2023 (U.S.).
In 2021, she was the winner of the Altanta Photography Group’s Purchase Award and several of her prints were acquired by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her photographs have been exhibited in juried group shows both nationally and internationally in venues such as The Center for Fine Art Photography, Griffin Museum, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Photo LA, and A. Smith Gallery. She has received numerous awards and has been published in Marie Claire Italia, F-Stop Magazine, The Daily Beast, Lenscratch, Shots Magazine, and Edge of Humanity among others. She lives with her husband, three children and two golden retrievers in Los Angeles.
Photography most certainly made me go through life with a lot more visual appreciation for my surroundings. I often find myself driving along a road, or walking / hiking around and thinking: “ooh, that would make for a neat photo location”. As part of my activity in organizing Meetups and workshops, I have explored and gotten to know the greater Boston area much more than any other of the numerous locations I have lived in before. 
I will be teaching 
Any location where I create photos! Photography itself is my escape, and it doesn’t matter so much where I am. Everyday life and whatever problems there may be magically disappear when I am out and about with my cameras. I do, however, particularly cherish moonlit nights, be it to capture the moment when our planetary companion comes over the horizon, or when it is brightly lighting up the landscape. And, of course, the grand landscapes of the western US, which seem to be made for night photography. I happen to be there this week, my first trip in 15 months.
Jürgen Lobert
