Online Exhibitions

Ruben Natal San Miguel | Collection Acquisition

Posted on August 9, 2023

We are thrilled to announce a new donation to the Griffin Contemporary Collection from photographer Ruben Natal-San Miguel.

From the exhibition and series Women R Beautiful we have four prints to add to the collection. This generous donation will represent a broad selection of San Miguel’s magnum opus and years long series featuring the women of New York.

Frank and honest, the women are confident, self aware and direct with their gaze into the lens. His exhibition was featured during Women’s History Month at Griffin @ Lafayette, and we are excited to showcase the diversity and breadth of the female gaze and shared experience of portraiture at its most pure.

From Left to right –

Brotherly Love (Never Dies), Jennifer (Unlock the Vixen), 3 Muslim Girls and Nykki & Ari (Valentine Twins & Morning Glories)

In a partnership with Boston Downtown Association we had a special Mother’s Day Street Portrait studio. Ruben spent 2 hours on the streets of Downtown Crossing, creating a series of the same name. This digital collection is also part of the Contemporary Collection here at the museum.

We are so grateful to Ruben for sharing his creativity and unique vision with the museum and our patrons.

About Ruben Natal San Miguel –

RUBEN NATAL-SAN MIGUEL is an architect, fine art photographer, curator, creative director and critic. His stature in the photo world has earned him awards, features in major media, countless exhibitions and collaborations with photo icons such as Magnum Photographer Susan Meiselas. Gallery shows include: Asya Geisberg, SoHo Photo, Rush Arts, Finch & Ada, Kris Graves Projects, Fuchs Projects, WhiteBox Gallery, Station Independent Projects Gallery, LMAK Gallery, Postmasters Gallery Rome & NYC and others. His work has been featured in numerous institutions: The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Griffin Museum of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, African American Museum of Philadelphia, The Makeshift Museum in Los Angeles, University of Washington, El Museo del Barrio and Phillips Auction House and Aperture Foundation.

International art fair representation includes: Outsider Art Fair, SCOPE, PULSE, Art Chicago, Zona Maco, Mexico, Lima Photo, Peru and Photo LA. and Filter Photo Festival in Chicago Ill. His photography has been published in a long list of publications, highlights: New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Time OUT, Aperture, Daily News, OUT, American Photo, ARTFORUM, VICE, Musee, ARTnet and The New Yorker, PBS and NPR. In 2016, Ruben’s Marcy’s Playground was selected for both the Billboard Collective and website for Apple. His photographs are in the permanent collections of El Museo Del Barrio in NYC, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY, The Contemporary Collection of the Mint Museum Charlotte, North Carolina, The Bronx Museum for the Arts, School of Visual Arts, NYC, The Fitchburg Museum of Art, Massachusetts, The North Carolina Museum of Art at Raleigh, NC., The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, The Studio Museum of Harlem and The Museum of The City of NY, The Provincetown Art Museum, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Museum Center at Vassar College and The Museum of Fine Arts , Boston, MA.

28th Annual Juried Members Exhibition

Posted on March 1, 2022

28^th Annual Juried Members Exhibition

Jurors – Frances Jakubek & Iaritza Menjivar

7 July – 4 September, 2022

28^th Annual Juried Members Exhibition.

July 7, 2022 – September 4, 2022.

Artist Reception July 10, 2022 at 4 PM.

© Tokie Taylor, “An Offering,” 2021 Arthur Griffin Legacy Award

A series of online artist talks celebrating the award-winning artists in the exhibition will take place during the course of the exhibition. More information below.

Our annual call for entry is now open for submissions from March 1st thru April 15th, 2022, for all creative artists using photography as a primary medium, highlighting still images and including moving images, installation, and public works, experimental and mixed techniques for inclusion in our summer exhibition.

The Griffin Museum celebrates the craft of photography and the community it serves in its thirtieth year with our Annual Juried Members Exhibition. Our jurors are part of the legacy of the Griffin Museum, and we are thrilled they have agreed to jury this exhibition. As former Associate Directors, Frances Jakubek and Iaritza Menjivar have a long-standing connection to the museum and its members, and we celebrate their success as they moved from the Griffin Museum to other positions working to educate the public and celebrate the art of photography in their respective career paths.

Juror – Frances Jakubek

Frances Jakubek is an image maker, independent curator and advocate for photography. She is the Director of Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City, co-founder of A Yellow Rose Project, and past Associate Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Frances Jakubek

Recent curatorial appointments include Open Walls for the British Journal of Photography & Les Rencontres d’Arles, The RefridgeCurator, Photo District News’s The Curator Awards and Save Art Space. She has been a guest writer for Don’t Take Pictures, Diffusion Magazine and for artist publications including Serrah Russell’s monograph tears, tears.

Jakubek has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography fellowships, speaker for SPE National, Washington & Lee University, and the School of Visual Arts’ Masters of Photography i3 Lecture Series. Personal works have been exhibited at The Southern Contemporary Art Gallery in Charleston, SC; Filter Space, Chicago; Camera Commons in Dover, NH; and The Hess Gallery at Pine Manor College, MA.

Juror – Iaritza Menjivar

Iaritza Menjivar, © Elias Williams

Iaritza Menjivar is currently the Events Manager of the Somerville Arts Council and assists with public art projects and grant administration. She is past Associate Director at the Griffin Museum of Photography and continues to work as a freelance photographer. Iaritza’s clients include The Washington Post, Maine Media Workshops, MIT, and LISC among others.

For three consecutive years, Iaritza was awarded the presidential scholarship for the Advanced Mentorship Study Program in Visual-Storytelling and Documentary Projects at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center. She was also a recipient of the St. Botolph Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. Iaritza has exhibited at the Leica Gallery Boston, Modern Families at ArtsWestchester, and the Emerge-Cubes at Photoville in New York. She has been a judge panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s photography fellowships, speaker for a panel discussion at AIPAD and guest curator for The Fence.

Submission Guidelines –

Fees

Standard Pricing

March 22 – April 15, 2022 Fee – $35

Submissions accepted through CaFE – https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=10001

Submission period ends April 15, 2022 at 11:59 Mountain time.

Evaluation Criteria

The Griffin Museum invites member photographers working in all mediums, styles and schools of thought to participate. Experimental and mixed techniques are welcome. There is no theme. We are excited to review all forms of the photographic image, including moving image, installation and public works, experimental and mixed techniques are welcome. The members exhibition celebrates the creativity of all of our members using photography in their practice.

The number of photographs in the exhibition will be approximately 60 photographs.

Eligibility

ELIGIBILITY: This Call for Entries is open to all active member photographers. Entrants must be members of the Griffin Museum of Photography (with a current membership through April 2022). We do not advocate for members to join the museum just for this juried opportunity only. We always welcome new members as part of our family and offer a broad range of member opportunities. While some opportunities are for long distance members like our on-line classes, and programs, we want you to feel like part of our community from wherever you reside.

There is a membership level for Distance Members for those outside of New England.

Submission Requirements

Must be a member of the Griffin Museum of Photography through April 30, 2022. There is the availability to renew memberships.
All images must be submitted as jpeg files, sized to 1920 px on the longest dimension, (72 dpi), and in Adobe RGB or sRGB color space only.
Upload through the Café Portal 5 images.
8 images can be submitted for members at the dual/family level ($75) or above. Do not submit 8 images if you are not a Dual/Family Member or above. We will contact you to remove 3 images from your submission if your membership is not at the Family or above levels.
All memberships will be verified before delivery to juror. The jurying will be anonymous.

AWARDS:

$1,000 Arthur Griffin Legacy Award
$500 Griffin Award
$100 Honorable Mentions (5)
(4) Exhibition Awards that will take place next June and July 2023.
(1) Director’s Prize with exhibition and catalog
(1) Purchase Prize for Griffin Contemporary Collection

A catalog of the 28th Juried Exhibition will be produced.

An online digital showcase from photographs not chosen by the juror will be produced and available for viewing in the Museum.

Exhibition Dates –

July 7, 2022 – September 4, 2022.

Artist Reception – July 10, 2022 at 4 PM.

Online Artist Panels highlighting Winning and Honorable Mention Artists.

July 21st – 7pm Eastern
August 3rd – 7pm Eastern
August 18th – 7pm Eastern

TBD – Member Project(ions) – Participating members of the exhibition will have the opportunity for an outdoor slide show evening event on the Griffin Rotary Terrace.

Curator in Residence opportunity for exhibiting artists to meet with the jurors for a 30 minute portfolio review.

If selected for exhibition –

Artwork must be framed and ready to hang. Artists will pay shipping to and from the museum. Artwork can be available for sale. The Griffin would retain 35% of the sale price as a commission for the sale.

Evaluation Criteria

The number of photographs in the exhibition will be approximately 60 photographs. There are additional opportunities for digital and public art presentations in addition to the museum exhibition throughout the course of the exhibition.

Submission Requirements

Must be a member of the Griffin Museum of Photography through April 30, 2022. There is the availability to renew memberships.
All images must be submitted as jpeg files.
All entries that do not adhere to the guidelines above will be rejected.
Upload through the Café Portal 5 images.

All entrants must use the CallForEntry (CaFE) online entry system.

1. Access the CaFE site and create a free personal account. https://www.callforentry.org/
2. Upload your files into your CaFE portfolio with these specifications:
Image resolution: 1920 pixels (long dimension) @ 72 ppi

Profile: AdobeRGB(1998). Save file as an 8bit Jpeg. Files must not exceed 5MB.

Please remove any visible names, titles, watermarks, etc.

8 images can be submitted for members at the dual/family level ($75) or above. Please submit 5 images through cafe and send the remaining 3 images to photos@griffinmuseum.org – subject line Additional Submission Juried Show
All memberships will be verified before delivery to juror. The jurying will be anonymous.

Notification and Submission of Artwork: All entrants will be notified of the results via email after May 16, 2022. Check your spam or junk folders for this notice.

For invited gallery artists ONLY (online artists do not send artwork) artwork must arrive at GMP no later than Friday, July 1, 2022. Work delivered after this date will not be exhibited without prior arrangement.

Preparing your image for exhibition
All artwork for display in the gallery must be ready-to-hang. Framed pieces can be wood or metal and in any style or profile and must be glazed with acrylic Plexiglas is preferred. Mounted prints are welcome as long as they have some hanging method. Matted but unframed work will not be displayed. Your finished piece must not exceed 30 inches on the long side and weigh less than 10 pounds, with hanging wire securely attached to the back of the frame. No saw tooth hangers. Diptych, triptych, multiple images, etc. must not exceed 30 inches combined on the long side. For the safety of your piece and our gallery visitors, no exceptions will be granted for these framing requirements.

Delivery of Art
Accepted work needs to arrive at the Griffin Museum of Photography no later than Friday, July 1, 2022 via only Federal Express, UPS or USPS. Hand deliveries are welcome during gallery hours, Tuesday – Sunday, Noon – 4:00pm.

If you ship your work please use sturdy, reusable packaging — we will use the same packaging to return the piece to you. You may use reusable fiberboard containers or sturdy cardboard boxes, with additional bubble wrap and cardboard for shock protection. Use of Styrofoam peanuts or similar loose packaging material is not allowed and the piece will not be unpacked or exhibited.

FedEx, UPS or USPS can be shipped to the Museum. Please include a prepaid return-shipping label with additional insurance if desired for the return of your work. No cash or personal checks please.

Prints that do not meet our requirements, arrive late or damaged, cannot be hung properly, or are deemed by the jurors and CPA to be of poor quality will be not be exhibited. While your work is in our possession, in the event of loss, damage or theft, CPA’s liability is limited to replacement cost of materials only.

A signed Exhibitor Agreement needs to accompany your work or be completed upon our receipt of the piece.

About the Griffin Museum

The Griffin Museum of Photography was founded in 1992 to provide a forum for the exhibition of both historic and contemporary photography. The Museum houses three galleries dedicated solely to the exploration of photographic arts: The Main Gallery, which features rotating exhibits from some of the world’s leading photographers, the Atelier Gallery and Griffin Gallery dedicated to showcasing the works of prominent, up-and-coming artists. The Griffin is also home to the extensive archives of museum founder and world-renowned photojournalist Arthur Griffin. The Griffin Museum of Photography also maintains 2 additional satellite galleries: Lafayette City Center Passageway in Boston Downtown Crossing, in Winchester @WinCam at Winchester Community Access and Media. For more on the Griffin Museum of Photography, visit www.griffinmuseum.org.

Saba Sitton | Griffin Online Interview

Posted on July 14, 2020

We contacted Saba Sitton to ask her more questions about her journey in life and her photography. Below you will find her bio and her artist statement. You can see her work Journeys in Between and Distances Near Away in our Critic’s Pick Gallery.

Saba, thank you so much for taking the time to answer some of our questions for our audience. I enjoyed meeting you in Houston at Fotofest this past March. Can you talk a bit about “the present day Persian diaspora” for you and your family that you mention in your statement?

I think the experience of being part of a diaspora is different for each person, but I believe there are some common threads. For example, I feel that many from my parents’ generation have always hoped that one day they could return home. For me, home is more nuanced; the concept of home is somewhere between the two cultures, and the intricacies of that, is at the core of my creative work.

You talk about transitory instances where your present recalls the past. Can you speak about what that means to you?

For an immigrant or an exile, there is always some degree of longing for one’s place of origin. This sense of longing does not undermine or overwhelm one’s being. It is just a part of one’s existence. Sometimes a familiar scent, a familiar shape, or a gentle breeze on a summer’s afternoon, can recall a similar experience from the past. These transitory instances of time, while not easy to define, are moments when one’s awareness is threaded between the present and a similar moment remembered from the past. It is these transitory moments that inspire and inform much of my work.

I love the words you use to describe your work and journey. One phrase especially is the “poetics of migration” and “stories of exile”. Can you talk about this in reference to your work?

Over the years, I have come to know many who live in exile, and others who have migrated to different countries around the world. I have heard stories of hope, of loss, of struggle, of longing, and of reconciliation. We are all on a journey. Some journeys are more layered, others have great contrast. I often think of my work as visual poems, and these are the poetics that find their way into my work.

What does the flower mean to you in your photographs? It seems to me that the flower is a constant. Why flowers? Do you personally identify with the flower?

The flower has a special reverence in Persian culture. Throughout history, Persians have always prided themselves in their magnificent flower gardens. In Persian poetry, a flower symbolizes life’s beauty and fragility. A bouquet of flowers is considered a precious gift symbolizing life and renewal. In my work, a flower becomes a visual metaphor for a sense of connection with a remembered past and culture.

How do you use poetry with your work?

The poems that I use in my work are written by contemporary Persian poets. Persian culture has a strong history of poetry and celebrated poets. The culture has embraced poetry as a powerful carrier of ideas. The poetry in my work is an accompanying voice. Beyond the voice, the poems are also an integral element woven into the visual presence of the piece.

Is your use of color in your photographs deliberate. Reds are predominant in your work. I see reds holding such richness and strength. Can you talk about what the colors you use mean to you?

Color has always been an important part of my work. I often work with colors intuitively. But there are times when I use colors deliberately. For example, in my work, I often reference colors that are revered by the Persian culture like certain shades of blue, turquoise, and yellow. Intuitively, I am drawn to certain colors, like the color red. These colors, in all their variations, embody certain expressive qualities that I am looking for in my work.

Can you tell us about Ten by Ten: Ten Reviewers Select Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2018, FotoFest 2020 Biennial as so many of us missed it due to the pandemic.

The Ten by Ten exhibition showcased the work of ten artists whose work was selected by ten international reviewers from the FotoFest 2018 Meeting Place. The selected work was very diverse and displayed a richness of ideas and approaches. My series, Journeys in-Between, was one of the selected portfolios. The exhibition was well received by the community and it was an honor to have been a part of it. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the exhibition closed early. I believe FotoFest is planning to reopen the exhibition at a later date when it will be safe to open it to the public.

What work are you thinking about doing now?

I am always photographing life around me. I often explore new locations in search of images that embody a quality of expression that I am after. I work with these photographs, along with poems, and other materials to create my work. Today, the pandemic has changed so much of our everyday experiences. I am exploring new ways to produce my work with an awareness of today’s challenges.

Is there something I haven’t asked you that you would like to talk about for our audience?

I hope this interview will help reveal additional insights into my work. I want to thank you for this opportunity to discuss my work with you and with your audience.

Artist Statement

My work explores the transitory instances of time when one’s awareness is threaded between the present and a similar moment remembered from the past. At times, these threaded moments have hard juxtapositions due to differences from the change of context, the passage of time, or a change of place. Other times, they blend and fuse a sense of continuity that are more fluid and often share a moment of contemplation. Oftentimes my work is a reflection on the poetics of migration and the stories of exile. As an Iranian-American artist, my work is informed by idealized landscapes and intricate designs of early Persian art. Persian miniature paintings are adorned with intricate depictions of flowers, plants, and tightly woven patterns of imaginary gardens. In Persian poetry, a flower often symbolizes a fleeting moment, a poetic remembrance

of life’s transience and fragility. In my work, a flower becomes a visual metaphor for a sense of connection with a remembered past. I often include poems in my work. These poems become an accompanying voice within the work. Sometimes the poems echo a sense of hope or longing, other times they evoke a sense of disorientation or doubt, as might be felt by an immigrant or an exile, on a life’s journey, of being in-between.

Bio

Saba Sitton is part of the present day Persian diaspora. Her work explores transitory instances of time, either shared or solitary, visceral or recalled. Originally from Tehran, and having lived in Asia, Europe and the United States, Saba has firsthand experience living between cultures, languages, and traditions. Her work is often influenced by Persian art and literature as experienced and shared in a modern multicultural society. Saba studied art and design at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Oregon where she received her MFA. She

has worked on art and design commissions, and has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions. Most recently, Saba’s work was on exhibit at the Ten by Ten: Ten Reviewers Select Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2018, FotoFest 2020 Biennial, and will be a part of the upcoming exhibition The Blue Planet, at H2 – Center for Contemporary Art, Glass palace, Kunstsammlungen und Museen, Augsburg, Germany. Saba lives in the United States and spends her time between California and Texas.

Minny Lee | Artists Photobook Initiative

Posted on June 16, 2020

As part of the Griffin’s online offerings, we have a quarterly highlighted photobook artist. The artist currently featured is Minny Lee. Her beautiful, one of a kind, hand crafted books are precious objects. Our Executive Director, Paula Tognarelli, is a collector of photo books, and she asked Minny some questions about her work and inspiration.

I am fascinated by your combination of hand crafting of your books and involving a publisher in some of the mechanics. How do you decide when to use a bindery or to work on them yourself. Why Datz Press?

Encounters Maquette © Minny Lee

Over the years, I made different kinds of books, from one-sheet folded zines to 270-inch long scroll books with a custom box. Of these books, I published two with Datz Press: Encounters (2015) and Million Years (2018). Making one’s own book allows one to explore a wide range of materials, sizes, and binding techniques. The main reason for working with a publisher is to produce a larger number of books more efficiently. This also helps to disseminate the finished book to a larger audience. The challenge was to find a publisher that could reproduce my hand-made books in accordance with my concept, which was finalized after creating many, many maquettes.

Encounters, © Minny Lee

In December 2014, a mutual friend introduced me to Sangyon Joo, the publisher of Datz Press who was living in New York City at the time. I wanted to publish Encounters in time for a solo show in Seoul, South Korea. Datz Press was for me, love at first sight. I loved the sample paper and books that Sangyon brought to our meeting. Luckily, Datz Press was able to make Encounters in an edition of 100 in time for the exhibition. I am eternally indebted to Datz Press for their superb craftsmanship, professionalism, sublime aesthetics, and not compromising.

My final maquette for Encounters was printed on a roll of 44 inch wide and 176 inch long thin rice paper, which contained five strips that I had to cut and fold. Because the images were dark and the paper was thin, it often got jammed. It took me two weeks to make five books. Datz Press, on the other hand, printed three pages per sheet and attached several sheets to make a one-piece accordion. The book surpassed my expectations.

Million Years Maquette © Minny Lee

While Encounters was a self-published book, Million Years was a collaborative project. When I showed my latest maquette to Sangyon, she advised me to add more poems and informational text. After I finished with the final maquette, Datz Press enhanced my design. The book turned out much better than my original maquette. Datz Press participates in book fairs in the US and in South Korea and my books are often included in the offered collection. That’s another perk of working with a publisher.

You have mentioned in past conversations with me that you like to make books that the reader/viewer “experiences”. How do you go about doing that?

Books are magical; they bring us to places we may never have been to and expose us to stories that we may have not heard. I consider a book as a time-based medium and an object of art. Books require physical interactions; one must turn the pages to view. The touch of paper and sound of the turning all add to a physical experience of the book.

Resonance, © Minny Lee

Encounters measures to 7.5 inch high and 5.5 inch wide. Its small size creates intimate viewing. The title “encounters” is letterpressed onto the front side of the pale blue softcover. The spine does not have anything written on it. Paper is off white. It mimics rice paper. Each spread (two facing pages) allows only one image. Most images sit on the right side of the spread. After thirteen images, a one-page essay appears in pale blue, san serif typeface. When the viewer finishes reading my essay, they may travel to their own memory about nature. That’s my intention or invitation created by this book. The accordion folds allow continuous reading of the book. When the content is pulled out, it stands as a sculptural piece.

With Million Years, the editing and sequencing of the book with images and poetry were placed carefully in order to take the viewer into a lateral journey. There are four foldouts (gate folds). The first foldout has four landscape images without borders, as if it were a panorama. The second foldout has four images slightly different from each other to convey movement of the plane. The third foldout has three different cloud images. The forth one contains a long poem. Perhaps the goal of an artist is to take the viewer into a private experience of the world.

As an art book artist it isn’t about words per se. How do you communicate a narrative? Or is that secondary to the experience?

Narrative can come in different forms. With Encounters, I let the images speak first, utilizing the rhythm and color of pictures. Then at the end, I offer a little narrative about my upbringing in South Korea. With Million Years, images from the West Coast to the East Coast on a single airplane ride in chronological order lead the narrative. Poems in between images reflect on geology of the Earth. I tried to weave images and text together that are not explanatory but complimentary.

To me, the relationship between pages becomes a narrative—the author’s intended journey or path to navigate the book. It’s like a movie. There are feature films and documentary films that are filled with narratives. Then there are experimental and abstract films. They seem not to have narratives but clips are put together in a sequence, which becomes the narrative of the film. Every sequence has an intention of the director who is guiding the viewer’s journey.

How did you connect to books as a way of expression? How was that relationship forged?

Various artist’s book by Minny Lee.
Photo by Minny Lee.

The book as a medium is complex and challenging. As a medium of expression, I consider it as total art. A book can be visual, literary, sonic, experimental, performative, meditative, poetic, informative, scientific, investigative, and so on. I am attracted to the book’s ability to intertwine images and text. I take pleasure in designing the book and choosing the materials that meld its form and content together. Just like writing a novel, I can choose different voices, from the first person speaker to the third person speaker. I can travel across different time and place. Every part of the book requires decision-making, from the size of the font to the layouts to the margin of the pages. That deliberate decision-making requires me to be clear about my intention.

Artist Books, 2008 – 2019 © Minny Lee

When I was young, my father used to ask my siblings and I if we read this book or that book. My father read widely from literature to psychology to philosophy. I felt huge pressure to read to avoid disappointing him. My 8^th grade teacher donated 100 world classic literature books to the class. He taught Korean literature and wrote poetry. These two people influenced me greatly. I started to collect books since the mid 90s when I was living in New York. I love books for their intrinsic physicality and their ability to transport me into a different world. When I was studying Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography, I took Susan kae Grant’s bookmaking workshop in 2008. I learned a lot during that two-weekend workshop. Soon I realized that I could make my vision or dream into a book. Over the years, I’ve been asking myself, “What is a book?” Each time I make a new book, I am trying to answer to that question.

What books are in your library?

I will share some of my favorites from my library.

Literature/Philosophy/Psychology

Roland Barthes – Camera Lucida (1), Image – Music – Text (2)
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha – Dictee (1), Apparatus: Cinematographic Apparatus (2)
Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (1), Tender is the Night
Herman Hesse – Demian (1), Narcissus and Goldmund (2)
Alexander Von Humboldt Botanical Illustrations
Carl Gustav Jung – The Red Book (1), Man and His Symbols (2), Memories, Dreams, Reflections (3)
Li-Young Lee – Rose
Rollo May – The Courage to Create
Mary Oliver – A Poetry Handbook
Sylvia Plath – The Collected Poems (1), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2)
Richard Powers – The Overstory
Marcel Proust – In Search of Lost Time
Andrei Tarkovsky – Sculpting in Time
Henry David Thoreau – Walden (1), Walking (2), A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (3)
Ocean Vuong – Night Sky with Exit Wounds (1), On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2)
Virginia Woolf – The Waves (1), Orlando: A Biography (2), To the Lighthouse (3)
Andrea Wulf – The Invention of Nature

Photobooks/Artbooks

Robert Adams – Summer Night, Walking
Jehsong Baak – là ou ailleurs
Barbara Bosworth – Behold (1), Fireflies (2)
John Cage – 4’ 33’’ (1), Silence (2)
Harry Callahan – Water’s Edge
Linda Connor – Luminance
Joseph Cornell – Wanderlust
Moyra Davey – Les Goddesses Hemlock Forest
Roy Decarava – the sound i saw
Andreas Feininger – The Mountains of the Mind
Masahisa Fukase – The Solitude of Ravens
Eikoh Hosoe – Barakei (Ordeal by Roses)
Bill Jacobson – Place (Series)
MongGak Jeon – YoonMi’s House
Sangyon Joo – Grace and Gravity
Kinsey Photographer: A Half Century of Negatives by Darius and Tabitha May Kinsey
Hilma Af Klint – Notes and Methods
Gapchul Lee – Conflict and Reaction
Wayne Levin – Islands, Jeju
Danny Lyon – I Like to Eat Right on the Dirt (1), Knave of Hearts (2)
Amanda Marchand – Night Garden
Duane Michals – 50
Daido Moriyama – Dazai (1), Memories of a Dog (2), Farewell Photography (3)
Philip Perkis – The Sadness of Men
Gerhard Richter – Atlas
Michael Schmidt & Einar Schleef – Waffenruhe
Dayanita Singh – Sent a Letter
Keith Smith – Structure of Visual Book
Ralph Steiner – A Point of View
Larry Sultan – Pictures from Home
Yutaka Takanashi – Toshi-e (Towards the City): Books on Books No. 6
Calvin Tomkins – Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews

Who are your muses?

Nature

Mauna Kea

Sylvia Plath

Paul Cézanne

Duane Michals

KyungHwa Chung

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Kongji (my deceased dog)

Datz Press & Datz Museum

My classmates from the ICP-Bard MFA Program

About Minny Lee –

Minny Lee is a lens- based artist who is currently focusing on making artist’s books. Her work contemplates the concepts around time and space and the coexistence of duality. Lee was born and raised in South Korea and obtained an MA in Art History from City College of New York and an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard. Lee was awarded a fellowship from the Reflexions Masterclass in Europe and participated in an artist-in-residence program at Halsnøy Kloster (Norway) and Vermont Studio Center. Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Camera Club of New York, Datz Museum of Art (S. Korea), Espacio el Dorado (Colombia), Les Rencontres d’Arles (France), Lishui Photo Festival (China) among other venues. Lee’s artist’s books are in the collection of the International Center of Photography Library, New York Public Library, Special Collections at the University of Arizona, Special Collections at Stanford University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Amon Carter Museum Library, and many other private collections. Lee was based in the greater New York area for more than twenty years and recently relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii.

See more of Minny Lee‘s work on her website. To learn more about her book projects see her website dedicated to her Artist Books. Follow her on Instagram here.

Corona | Dawn Watson

Posted on June 15, 2020

We close out our features on our online Corona exhibition with the powerful and graphic work of Dawn Watson. Message from Grace is a beautiful and unique vision of landscape with a call to action. Her work implores us to look, to experience, to take time and see what is around us. We asked her to be part of our online exhibition because her work shines a light both externally into the world around us, and emotionally radiates the soul of who we are in it. We asked her a few questions about her work, and what is next for her.

How does light play in your work?

I’m drawn to the play at the edge where light and shadow meet. My still life work takes advantage of the natural light that enters my home studio. The incremental, constant change of angle and intensity of direct sunlight or the softer fill of an overcast day means I need to be ever aware and responsive to what will best serve the mood or message. Being outside in the landscape requires the same intuitive presence as I am at the mercy of multiple elements but light is always the first defining aspect that I seek.

The Griffin featured Message from Grace in 2018. Your series plays on light and a new way of seeing our natural world. How did you find your palette to showcase the world around us?

While doing some research, I saw in a photo the color combination of brilliant blues and golds used for the external skin of the Mission satellites orbiting in space. By inverting my photographic image, these same tones appeared in the inverted field with little to no deeper adjustment to the color tone in the images. The reveal of the color negative upended my understanding of the natural elements. Sky became ground, sand a glacier, reflection a galaxy, invasive plant species delicate lacy delights, the brilliant sun a black hole.

In all of your images the combination of science, nature and visual engagement really invites us as viewers to experience and be thoughtful about our shared inhabited spaces. What is your hope for us as viewers to take away from your work?

There is this conversation of call and response in and with the natural world, each other, and the larger human community. How we respond now directly affects our future. Due to excessive human activity, weather intensifies, the world shape shifts and the familiar disappears. What is our relationship to loss, inequities, constant change? Where do we find shelter, sustenance and solace? How do we define beauty? What is its worth as the natural world morphs from the familiar to the unrecognizable and uninhabitable? My hope is this work inspires reflection that motivates action.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

Forced confinement has been both a difficult challenge and, paradoxically, a gift granting me the chance to be still, to be quiet. Different each day, I track the passage of time as the sunlight makes it’s marks along the walls, ceiling, floors and furniture. I step outside often, turning towards the sun watching how it catches in the trees, how wind plays with the light.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Two new series have been gestating for a while. I was unsure of what I wanted to say and thought it best to let things be for a bit. Not until very recently did I reach some clarity. Drift/Bound visually translates my visceral response to how disconnected we feel as recent events have rocked our world. The crumpled, misshapen forms in my prints drift against fields of light and dark, unmoored, as we are, from any familiar world. ReRe is a still life series using saved plastic packaging material, natural elements and found or collected objects. It asks do we repurpose, recycle, redirect, reform and renew or let go of what remains?

About Dawn Watson –

After twenty-five years as a professional dancer, Dawn Watson shifted her artistic practice to photography, finding affinity in the visual storytelling offered by both live performance and the captured image. Watson’s photographic renderings continue to explore form, space, light, movement and storytelling, as she did as a performer. Nature serves as her muse, her subject of concern, a source of solace and healing.

Watson studied photography at the Maine Media Workshop, the ICP (International Center of Photography), as well as the Santa Fe Workshop. Her work has been featured online and in print, including in Lenscratch and The Hand magazine. She has exhibited her photographs and artist books throughout the United States and Europe including the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, A Smith Gallery, Center for Fine Art Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, Ph21 Gallery, Tilt Gallery, Tang Teaching Museum, and in solo exhibitions at The Griffin Museum of Photography at Greater Boston Stage Company, the Los Angeles Center for Photography and Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts. Her work is held in private collections and at The Lodge at Woodloch.

To see more of Dawn Watson‘s work log onto her website. Follow her on Instagram here.

Corona | J. Felice Boucher

Posted on June 10, 2020

J. Felice Boucher‘s beautiful image Goddess is one of our featured images from our online Corona exhibition. The radiant light emanating from her subject is a moving tribute to the power of a soul. Her exhibition at the Griffin in 2019, Center of Quiet, featured portraits of women facing forward and showing strength in their quiet moments. We asked her some questions about her work and how she sees light in her day.

How does light play in your work?

Light is photography. I went to visit a young photographer at her studio and she said that “old timers wait for the right light. They should just take the damn photograph and fix it in PhotoShop.” That broke my heart. It took me many years to understand light and to really see it.

We highlighted your image Goddess from Center of Quiet, an exhibition featured at the Griffin last year. The Goddess image really showcases her power and strength, radiating from her soul. How did you work with her to capture that?

I ended up photographing two beautiful sisters. I met one of the sisters at a bank where she was a teller. When I photographed her she invited her sister to join us and I photographed her too.

I love fabric and textures so I found fabrics that would highlight their gorgeous faces and skin tones. They have such strong and beautiful features so I wanted to capture those.

“Red Headed Girl” © Felice Boucher

Your images have a beautiful textural quality to them, like paintings. What led you to this technique to accentuate the quiet strength of your female subjects?

I do try to capture the strength of women in a direct sensuous but not sexual way. For me there is a huge difference between the two; sensuous and sexual. The light and texture in the Old Master paintings are compelling to me. So I add texture of colors over my photographs to give them a painterly look.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I haven’t photographed since the Covid-19 hit us. I had been photographing my models in a little corner of my bedroom and it is no longer a possibility to bring people into my home. But I am always photographing in my mind even without a camera in my hands. I love watching how light falls on someones face, on a landscape, or a strong shadow created by a flower in a vase.

“Forgiven”, © Felice Boucher

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Good question. Who knows. On my walks I pass a neighbor’s mustard colored dingy and rust colored chickens in the warm evening light…that pulls at me.

About J. Felice Boucher –

J. Felice Boucher has been a photographer with a career that has spanned 27 years. She earned her BFA from the Maine College of Art, as a non-traditional student and single mother of two young children. And was awarded the Master Degree, Craftsmanship Certification by the Professional Photographers of America. She opened her photography business and photographed weddings, portraits and commercial projects both locally and around the country for over 23 years. Recently she has given up the wedding and portrait work and now focuses on real estate photography and her fine are work. Her fine art photography has appeared in museums, galleries and private collectors.

Corona | Liz Calvi

Posted on June 9, 2020

One of our featured artists in our Corona online exhibition, Liz Calvi’s work illuminates inner beauty and light. Her series, Lost Boys was featured at the Griffin in 2014. Her Corona highlighted image, Christian, comes from that series. We wanted to know more about the work, and how she finds the beauty and strength within her subjects.

How does light play in your work?

The relationship I have to light varies for each series I make, but I would say a common thread would be that light is a defining factor when I create my work.

David, © Liz Calvi

For Lost Boys in particular, I wanted to use natural light to express a quiet beauty and a feeling of reverie. When I made this series, the narrative depicted my generation highlighted the success of women in the workplace and the decline of a 1950s mentality of men as masculine financial providers. We left high school in 2008 and entered either the job market or college during a financial crisis. The narrative excluded the hardship that many of us were feeling and, coincidentally, how these new circumstances were chastising men for not living up to an outdated view of masculinity. The young men I photographed were all living at home (as was I) and I wanted to use light to show a softer side to masculinity while concurrently evoking empathy towards our generation.

We highlighted your image from the series Lost Boys, featured at the Griffin back in 2015. The connection you have with your subject is truly captured in this intimate moment. How did it come about?

Christian, © Liz Calvi

Christian and I are from the same town, our childhood homes are right around the corner from each other. We became friends in high school so we already had an established relationship prior to making this photograph. As with most of the young men I photographed for Lost Boys I didn’t go in with a preplanned idea. I went to Christian’s home one afternoon and we chatted while walking around the different rooms in his house. I surveyed the light while listening to his stories as he told me various memories he had from different places in his home. We took a few photographs that day, but I settled on this one in his room because of the balance between the distortion and grace in his gesture, complemented by the dappling light.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

Booker, © Liz Calvi

I’ve tried to see this time in insolation as a way to reexamine my relationship to light and nature which we tend to overlook in our typical fast-paced consumer society. I’ve been using my digital devices less frequently and taking my camera outdoors or simply just enjoying nature hands free. Light has been providing happiness and relaxation for me, it has been a solace in our time of Corona. I’ve also been making time to reflect in the spring light and hope it provides others with a similar time for personal reflection but also a time to consider how our society is structured and what it prioritizes.

Installation View Ms. World, © Liz Calvi

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Recently I’ve been focusing on the representation of women in digital spaces and how this impacts identity from an autobiographical and collective cultural memory lens. This direction has led me to make videos and writing to go with my photographs in larger installations. I finished grad school this past year and am in the beginning phase of research, writing, and storyboarding for new video work.

About Liz Calvi –

Liz Calvi (b. 1990 Hartford, USA) lives and works between London and NYC. Her practice encompasses photography, video, writing and installation works with critical concerns regarding performance, sexuality, autobiography, identity and digital media.

Calvi received her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths 2019 and her BFA from the University of Hartford in 2012 after studying at Pratt Institute. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Der Greif, Juxtapoz, Aint-Bad and Fader. Her photography has been exhibited internationally and is in several public & private collections. She has a limited- edition book in the permanent collection at Antenna in New Orleans as part of The Blue Library Vol 2

To see more work from Liz Calvi log onto her website. Find her here on Instagram.

Corona | Kevin Hoth

Posted on June 8, 2020

Holding a mirror up to our surroundings isn’t just an idea for Kevin Hoth. In his series Everywhere and All at Once, shown at the Griffin in 2018, Hoth uses a mirror to give us that fuller view. Reflection is important, especially now, in so many ways. In seeing the landscape as a fully sensory lived and shared experience, Kevin has given us a way to experience light and life in a new way. His image highlighted in our Corona exhibition, Overdub, is a perfect example of light and the ideas of Corona.

How does light play in your work?

It’s funny, I almost never think about it but that is because I am so intimately involved with it on a daily basis. Light is always the raw material in my work, of course, though I don’t generally make work about it unless it relates to a particular project I am working on. During this time of coronavirus I have indeed been tracking the shadows in my home as a way to trace time. There is an arrangement of oblique light that falls on my daughter’s piano that I jokingly call “cubist piano time.” I’ve thought about making an image every time it falls like this and then create a tiled image of all of these fractured pianos. Some plant shadows have featured in some of my work but it usually is just for play or observational practice with an instant film camera. We are also creatures borne of light. All the sustenance that we require comes from sunlight.

We are featuring your image Overdub, from your series Everywhere and All at Once. Your creation of a visual landscape that incorporates multiple directions showcases a unique way of seeing. How did you find your vision? What was the first image in the series that pushed you forward to work that way?

I have always enjoyed noticing other spaces in reflections. About ten years ago I made some images looking into windows and I thought about how there were three spaces represented: the surface of the glass (a flat space but still a space to be rendered), what was inside the building, and what was behind me. So I think the consciousness of multiple spaces within one frame, from one vantage point was a growing seed inside me. The Everywhere And All At Once project really came from a mix of play and accident which is where all great discoveries come from. I was experimenting with mirrors back in 2012 for about a year and then set it aside as I didn’t know where it was going. Later a friend asked about the series so I picked up the mirror again and took it with me on hikes and road trips. I made an image of a mountain side connecting to a cloud, then one horizon line connecting into another and that is where my “ah-ha moment” occurred. As a photographic observer I often feel like I can see everything at once at one time. It’s almost a physical sensation. This project is a way for me to evoke that sensation. I also feel most alive in open, natural spaces and the expansiveness is something I am trying to show albeit from my singular vantage point.

Does the use of the mirror also hold a metaphorical gaze for you? In how we look at landscapes? What would you like viewers of your work to walk away with after seeing your photographs?

I suppose I’d like people to see what I see or at least feel some sensation of how I observe. I want the gaze here to be almost a disembodied or maybe a universal one. Although I am conscious that not all people have the same comfort level or privilege of being alone in a landscape. Some have noted a visual fragmentation in these images which one could liken to a Cubist viewpoint. Again, the idea here is merging several angles of view into one image even though I am combining them in one instant. I have made more of a conceptual connection to the way people often view landscapes through a phone screen. I’ve made a fair amount of this work in National Parks and when you stop at a prescribed viewpoint you see the phenomenon of the quick phone grab. We often are too busy looking through our phones to frame the right shot. Of course, I am also “guilty” as I am meditating my view through a camera.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I appreciate small things maybe in the same way a child would. Light falling on the floor from my skylight, shadows from a tree shifting on my window shades in the afternoon. A red-orange poppy coming up in my yard is a celebration for me. Color fills me up in extremely energizing ways. My current work is around flowers and I am endlessly fascinated by them. My daughter is also a constant source of joy and light for me. I’m not sure how I would be doing without long hugs with her.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

I have been experimenting with instant film for quite some time and am currently working on a series called Immortal Chromatic. I photograph flowers that keep their color even after dying and then I create large instant film mosaics from these source images. I cut and burn the instant film “tiles” as they develop. The theme of creation and destruction has been part of this work with flowers across multiple projects. I am also integrating paint and thread into these physical pieces as well. They are photographs but they are also sculptural objects.

about Kevin Hoth –

Kevin Hoth is an artist working with photography, video and performance. His current work deals with perception and the manner in which multiple spaces can be formed into a singular frame. Kevin also works heavily with deconstructed instant film to explore themes of creation/destruction, truth as it is represented in photography, as well as beauty and transience.

Kevin Hoth in his studio

Kevin has shown work in over one hundred exhibitions nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at The Dairy Center for the Arts, The Rhode Island Center for Photography, The Houston Center for Photography, and The Center For Fine Art Photography. His work will be part of the Qualities of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson in January of 2020. Recent awards include Top 200 Critical Mass, Center For Fine Art Photography Portfolio Showcase 12 and top ten finalist in the New Orleans Photo Alliance 2018 Clarence John Laughlin Award. Kevin recently completed an artist residency in January of 2019 in Brazil and explored how varied perceptions of time can be represented.

Kevin has taught college courses in photography, graphic design, and multimedia art at numerous universities and currently teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder where he has taught since 2011. He lives with his daughter in mountainous Boulder, CO and gets regularly woken up by coyote cries, owl hoots, and horse whinnies.

Fun facts: He did a stint as a full-time graphic designer for an Amazon.com company, made an interactive garment with force sensors that played odd bodily noises back in 2006, collaborated extensively with a modern dance company as a VJ, and played bass in a Seattle band that once played live on KEXP-Seattle.

To see more of Kevin Hoth‘s work, log onto his website. Look here follow him on Instagram.

Corona | Meg Birnbaum

Posted on May 30, 2020

Meg Birnbaum, featured in our online Corona exhibition, is a master of playing with light and life. The Griffin featured Meg’s series The Sisters of the Commonwealth in 2014. Her images seek out to highlight the quiet moments in the day, and remind us to stop, take a deep breath and wonder about the world we inhabit. Her image, Lights in the Sky, exemplifies this vision. We asked Meg about this image, and about how she finds light in her day.

How does light play in your work?

I love natural light and prefer the golden hours. This photograph is a window reflection but I thought they could be fairy lights or daytime fireflies.

Lights in the Sky is one of my favorite images in the show. How did you create such a great photograph?

It was a lucky moment. I was finishing lunch in a restaurant and when I stood up to leave I saw that the retro lighting reflected magically in the window.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

Mostly I find light in helping things grow, students or garden flowers. Also friends and family and dogs as role models – they always wake up optimistic.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

I’m playing with loosely recreating the allegorical paintings by Simeon Solomon, an almost forgotten painter from 1850 or so. His career was destroyed by the scandal of being arrested twice for soliciting sex in a men’s public bathroom. He died alone, an alcoholic in a house for the desitute. I love his work and it is easy to see through it to what he was really wishing for had it been another time in history.

About Meg Birnbaum –

Meg Birnbaum lives and works in the Boston area. She is a photographer, graphic designer, and educator.

Her most recent solo exhibition was at The Stonewall Museum and Archives, Fort Lauderdale in 2019. She has been featured with solo exhibitions at Gallery Tanto Tempo in Kobe, Japan, Corden Potts Gallery, San Francisco, The Lishui International Photography Festival, China, the Museum of Art Pompeo Boggio, Buenos Aires during the biennial Encuentros Abiertos-Festival de la Luz, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Massachusetts, Flash Forward Festival, Boston, Davis/Orton Gallery, NY, and Panopticon Gallery, Boston.

Meg teaches portfolio building classes at the Griffin Museum of Photography. She a member of the Griffin exhibition committee and designs their catalogs, signage and website. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, the Lishui Museum of Photography in China, the Meditech Corporation, and private collections.

To see more of Meg Birnbaum‘s work log onto her website. Follow her creativity on Instagram

Corona | Julia Borissova

Posted on May 29, 2020

First seen in 2014 at the Griffin, Running to the Edge by Julia Borissova is a beautiful series mixing image and object. Finding vintage photographs and adding organic materials, Borissova creates a sensory experience creating images as unique objects. As a featured artist in our online Corona exhibition we asked Julia about her work, and how light fills her days.

How does light play in your work?

A man in formal diplomat dress has a curve of orange flowers covering his left chest as if a shield.

Light is an important part of photographic art and is paramount to the artist. I will not go into details of the light-sensitivity of the silver halides as a key to the photographic process. But when I see old photographs, when I hold images of people from the past in my hands, I think about those rays of light that reflected from their real bodies and reached me, me here, now. As Susan Sontag says about photography: “A photograph of a missing creature will touch me like a retarded star’s rays.” And this is what excites me the most in my work.

Your work takes vintage photos, layered with organic blooms and reconstructs narratives into new tales. In bringing light to these anonymous people, how do you know when you have found the right combination of organic textures and new memories.

Three women stand in a line with hats on and dressed in suits showing from the chest up. Daisy like flowers cover the top of their heads.

When I was working on the Running to the Edge project, I explored means of creating content in the photos through their physical presence as objects and connecting them with natural element. I was thinking about how our memory functions. When we recall something from the past, every time we create a different image, replacing some parts with new ones. I decided to try the same with photographs – adding flowers to the old photograph, I wanted to give them a new meaning, a new life. I specifically did not create any compositions, this happens intuitively.

Anonymity is important to you in your images. Do you find that these unidentified faces lift our general assumptions based on looks that allow the light to shine?

Woman in coat and hat with pink flowers for eyes.

My way is a different one. Found images can be always a source of my inspiration. I bought all the photos that I used while working on “Running to the Edge” project at a flea market or antique shop. These photos are connected with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the first wave of emigration after it. Combining old photos and flowers petals, sometimes covering people’s faces and making them completely anonymous, I created an atmosphere of general and indefinite mourning for unknown to me people through the medium of photography, the medium that is traditionally valued for its claim to authenticity.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

At this time, however, as always, creativity give me a sense of light, freedom and vitality.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

A woman in a long dress is standing in front of a column and a purple flower covers her head and chest.

I am working on several projects, one of which is still in the research process. Also, I continue to develop my project DOM (Document Object Model). “DOM” means a house, home or building in Russian language. I explore how our concept of home is changing over time and the notion of home is transforming in connection with the place in which we live. We are all used to moving from place to place, but today we are forced to stay at home. My question is: How have current circumstances influenced or changed our concept of “home”? I would like to collect the opinions of different people and make a small book to remember this time.

Review of Running to the Edge by Igor Lebedev –

Memory rolls in like waves causing a sudden and acute experience which doesn’t refer to a life of a specific person. This memory is connected to a cultural stratum. Everything is mixed here, the present and the past, some old photo portraits telling the stories of life which were erased by flow of time, dried flowers that represent markers of what was important but was forgotten, the memories of what happened, but couldn’t be remembered. So we can see it all in the pictures of the new series “Running to the Edge” by Julia Borissova.

The imperfection of memory provokes an artist to restore it, so in her work she turns to archives again and again, systematically reinterpreting them at the new levels of personal awareness of not ancestral memory but the memory of the nation. Through its reconstruction it’s easier to recover what has been lost and what has continued as consequences of birth traumas which took place in Russian history so often.
An archive is an anonymous evidence of elapsed time. The anonymity is inherent in a multi-level cultural de-identification of the past. However, despite the apparent constancy of its anonymity, it is surprisingly ready to manipulation according to the needs of everybody who faces it.

Two Russian soldiers with purple flowers.

The material included in the archive has great variability of its stories, as a rule, on a superficial level, which can be read from the perspective of nostalgic feelings of the past time in the context of personal experience. But the work with an archive is not only a subconscious desire for nostalgic revival of the past or an affect of overcoming losses in a chain of generations, although it means also some sensual experiences. It is rather an intuitive feeling of the boundaries rigidly dissecting an established world order, an attempt to understand the reasons for the “explosion” that changes the lives of many generations. And, in the end, created statement based on fetishes (old photographs in this case), the objects of so-called personal museum according to Sigmund Freud is an expression of protest arising at the point where the traumatic overcoming of a loss merges with the desire to counteract the possibility of its recurrence in the future.

It seems that such attempt of expression protest is characteristic for Julia Borissova who in her works refers to events from Russian history connected with the revolution and after that the first wave of emigration. In the old pictures the author adds the multi-layer effect through the using collage technique. The pictures themselves already have the images of a distant, “frozen” by photography past while the fragments of flowers imposed on them marked the present undefined in the flow of time. The occurring in the gap of the past and the present becomes for the author the field of exploring her relationship with the historical predestination.

A man and woman in Russian formal dress with red flowers over eyes.

The people in the photographs can’t realize their future, but for the author it’s ajar from the other side, as the future-in-the past. This is the future as the opposite shore of rapid flow of history, which destroyed the whole world, erased the relations of collective memory, forced to experience the pain of the absence of something that wasn’t experienced. And the most important, provoked a conversation about the “deformed, broken world” made in our minds by the old Soviet and the new post-Soviet society in turns, whose features have collage nature.

Igor Lebedev,
curator, photographer, historian of photography

About Julia Borissova –

Julia Borissova is an Estonia-born, St Petersburg-based artist who works with photography, collage, installation and book making, to explore how history and memory are perceived through images. The book is her natural medium to contemplate real stories and blends documentary elements with imaginary things, trying to capture ephemeral, fragmentary and elusive memories.

A women's hips and partial legs cropped at the waist in a dress with pink flowers covering her from waist up.

Her artists’ books include: Looking for Dimitry (2019), Nomad (2019), Nautilus (2018), Let Me Fall Again (2018), White Blonde (2018), Red Giselle (2017), Libretto (2016), Dimitry (2016), J.B. about men floating in the air (2015), Address (2015), DOM (Document Object Model) (2014), Running to the Edge (2014), The Farther Shore (2013).

Borissova’s books can be found in the collections of many major institutions,including Tate Modern (London), Art Museum of Estonia Library (Tallinn), Victoria and Albert Museum (London), National Library of Spain (Madrid), Bibliographic Collection of The Municipal Archives of Lisbon, Centre for Fine Print Research. UWE (Bristol), Reminders Photography Stronghold (Tokyo), Indie Photobook Library (USA), the Library of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Phoenix Art Museum (USA).

Borissova has frequently exhibited her photography and books around the world in group and solo shows.

Education:
Academy of Photographic skills in 2009-2010.
Foundation of information and cultural projects “FotoDepartament”, program “Photography as a research”, 2011-2013.
Master class: Jan Grarup (Denmark, agency NOOR) class, 2011; Morten Andersen (Norway) class, 2011, 2012; Luuk Wilmering (Dutch) class, 2012; Anouk Kruithof (Dutch) class, 2013; Jaap Scheeren (Dutch) class, 2014; Workshop of the international photography magazine FOAM.

Awards:
2019 – FOTO WIEN Photo Book Award – shortlist;
2019 – Riga Photomonth – shortlist;
2018 – Encontros da Imagem, Portugal – finalist;
2018 – Kassel Dummy Award, Germany – shortlist;
2017 – Riga Photomonth – shortlist;
2016 – “Encontros da Imagem”, Portugal – finalist;
2015 – “Unveil’d Photobook Award – winner;
2015 – FotoFilmic, Canada – winner;
2015 – Belfast Photo Festival – winner;
2014 – San Francisco International Photography Competition;
2013 – 1st place “International Fine Art Photography Competition” (France);
2013 – The Baltic Photo Biennale – winner

Recent Solo Exhibitions –

2019 – Lullaby for a Bride, The first Factory of Avant-garde, Ivanovo, Russia

Recent Exhibitions –
2018 – Maybe an Island, Vitland, Kaliningrad;
2017 – Julia Borissova, Artists’ Books Exhibition, Centre for Fine Print Research, Bristol, UK;
2017 – Running to the Edge, Metenkov’s House Museum, Yekaterinburg;
2016 – Beyond the Seen, The Yard Gallery, Exeter, UK

To see more of Julia Borissova‘s work visit her website.

Online Exhibitions

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