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January 17th 2025 — It was one of those days when the deceptively clear sky allowed the morning sun to beam down onto the fresh January snow so bright it made the ice crystals glisten like stars in the New England sky. It was one of those days when the nearby Winchester High School students still hadn’t been let out, and a quiet peace shone across the adjacent Judkins Pond, where a nest of swans had made their home. Here, neatly tucked on the shore of the Aberjona River, stands the Griffin Museum of Photography, endearingly referred to as simply “the Griffin.” On January 17th, the museum opened with its newest exhibition: Nuclear Family. This project collaborated with numerous artists both domestically and internationally to explore themes of family and parenthood—highlighting these matters through a queer lens.

I was fortunate enough to view the pieces just before the official opening night, allowing me to take in each other the pieces in a state of seclusion and privacy. This time alone in the ornate building challenged me to authentically observe and deliberate each of the numerous astounding photographs placed around the museum’s three spaces.

After briefly speaking with and enjoying the company of Executive Director Crista Dix, I turned around and entered the main gallery space. Three purple walls welcomed me into the room, and I immediately felt a sense of unequivocal warmth. 

In the center main gallery, the vivid pastels of Laurence Philomene’s monograph Puberty immediately welcome you into the space, a project exploring the multifaceted nature of transitioning. Philomene’s works, such as Angel Chimes (2021) and Daily Still Life/Bedside Table (2019), grant the viewers a small, unfiltered window into their life as a non-binary individual. Behind the pastels, themes of freedom and intimacy weaves together their pieces and add vibrancy to this exhibition.

On the main gallery’s walls, you can find numerous other projects, each observing queerness from each artist’s lens. What made this project so exceptional was having the opportunity to view how others interpret their queerness, each artist being vastly different from the prior. 

Mengwen Cao’s Liminal Space centered on joy and connection in the queer Asian diaspora. In this project, they allow those photographed to express themselves in a genuine and all-encompassing way, placing the ideas of strife and struggles in the LGBTQ+ community on the back burner, allowing moments of unabashed delight to shine through. These photos—characterized by their shimmering and opalescent quality—radiate nothing less than charm.

Nearby hangs Jess T. Dugan’s Letter to My Daughter, a series dedicated to their own five-year-old Elinor. This project takes the form of a video featuring photographs that beautifully paint together both the zeniths and nadirs of parenthood as a queer person—touching upon topics such as the challenges of conception, adjusting to parenthood as a queer person, and love. The audio behind the video hit home for me, with Dugan reading aloud a letter that was written to their daughter. It was genuinely fascinating to see Dugan spotlight this theme, as family is often a contentious topic within the queer community, and Dugan’s spotlight allows for an open and honest conversation about how identity and parenthood intersect.

Adjacent to Dugan hangs prints created by artist Yorgos Efthymiadis in his collection The Lighthouse Keepers. His pastoral depictions of his seaside hometown in Greece perfectly mirror the recurrent metaphors of lighthouse keepers guiding queer folk through his quaint hometown. Fittingly, the marriage between home, identity, and community glows from his pieces. 

Anne Vetter’s series love is not the last room that examines community on a familial level, utilizing their family as the models in their fascinating story. Observing everyday scenes through their gender-fluid lens, Vetter can accurately and meaningfully capture large swaths of family life, delicately subverting expectations.

What contextualizes these pieces? Matthew Leifheit’s Queer Archives series serve to document queer culture through its various movements throughout the 20th century, collecting and re-presenting materials that many major institutions would neglect. Leifheit’s archival work not only serves to question who is in charge of telling history but, in doing so, also keeps that same history alive. Leifheit’s series underscores a more significant issue within historical storytelling and keeps those silenced queer voices alive, a sight that was truly heartwarming to see. It’s stories like the one’s that Leifheit raises that provided me with a plethora of solace in my coming out, reminding the world that queer people have always been here and will always continue to be.

Moving out of the main gallery into the atelier gallery, I was greeted by artist Kevin Bennett Moore’s project Meditation in an Emergency. Moore, influenced by films of the mid-19th century and by their own experience as a queer individual, creates scenes that occupy a tangible and abstract space for the viewer. In essence, they are not the calm before the storm but rather the calm within the storm. The presentation of these pieces outside the main gallery serves to further isolate the works from those of the other artists and aids in driving home the themes Moore addresses.

Further on in the Griffin’s back gallery hangs the heartbreaking displays created by Matthew Finley in his series An Impossibly Normal Life, which follows his uncle Ken’s life as a queer man in the pre-1970s. Finley, who identifies as queer himself, reshaped his uncle’s life into something that didn’t focus on the shame of being LGBTQ+ but instead lived in an alternate reality where that same aspect was a social norm.

Adding a light shimmer over scenes of men acting in a way some would presume as ‘taboo,’ reshaping them into something positive was indeed a heartwarming and gut-wrenching experience. It’s challenging not to imagine what these men may have gone through, and Finley successfully achieves his goal of showing anyone “struggling with their identity what could have been and what could have been.” When exiting this portion of the gallery, I turned around to catch a last glimpse at the photos on the wall when a shimmer of sunlight gleamed through the window, making the whole room shimmer in a truly dazzling display. At this moment, I understood why the museum had hit so close to home. 

As the United States continues to change, it was truly touching to be invited to a space celebrating queerness without remorse. Whether in Philomene’s vibrant prints, Vetter’s calm and present shots, or Finley’s sparkling and emotional displays, it was clear that these artists put time, thought, and care into each of their extraordinary displays. As a local queer teenager, it’s moving to see such a celebration of queer art and queer lives. Despite my lack of expertise in photography, it was evident that what these eight artists created was nothing short of passionate, evocative, and dazzling.

Willow Simon (b. June 28th, 2005) is a rising sophomore at Wesleyan University, currently majoring in English and History, and planning on minoring in Middle Eastern Studies. She specializes in journalism and creative writing and has a passion for working in audio.

Griffin Museum of Photography – Winchester, Massachusetts

The Griffin Museum @ Lafayette City Center Passageway – Boston, Massachusetts

Mengwen Cao‘s project, Liminal Space, celebrates the everyday beauty, intimacy, and resilience of queer and trans people of color, with a particular focus on Asian queer identities. We had the opportunity to ask a few questions to Cao, whose work is on view in our Nuclear Family exhibition, which explores ideas of family and community through a queer lens.

Nuclear Family is on view at the Main Gallery from January 17 – March 30, 2025

Reception for the Artists – January 23rd, 6 to 8pm

An interview with the artist follows.

The tender gaze in Liminal Space feels deeply intentional. How do you create an environment where such moments of vulnerability and connection can unfold naturally during your shoots?

MC: My process is deeply collaborative. Before a photoshoot, I always ask my subjects how they want to be seen and what makes them feel safe. Growing up in a mainstream society that often tells us we don’t belong can create a somatic memory of fear around being seen. I’ve experienced this myself—I’ve frozen in front of the camera—so I understand how vulnerable it can feel. When I’m behind the camera, I try my best to create a safe environment where people can express their authentic selves.

This project began in 2017 when I first moved to New York and was searching for a queer people of color community. Photo sessions became a way to connect with others intimately and build relationships. Over time, the process has evolved into something more intentional and ritualistic. Lately, I’ve been treating photo sessions as a form of spell-casting or alchemy. We start with a collaborative vision session, where we have an in-depth conversation about their intentions, the past they want to shed, their present reality, and the future they want to call in. On the day of the shoot, we begin with somatic exercises—like massage or visualization meditation—to help them center themselves and connect with their vision. Then, we play. It’s not about performing a role; it’s a ritual to return to the self and remember the power of presence.

Given the collaborative nature of the work, do you have a favorite anecdote or interaction with a subject that speaks to the essence of this project?

MC: One of my most recent collaborations, with Haruka Aoki, felt like a crystallizing moment for this project. Haruka is a Japanese poet-illustrator and hope bender. We had been internet friends for a while, admiring each other’s work from afar, but we had never met in person. After our initial vision call, I was beaming with joy and alignment—there was a visceral sense that we had conjured this moment together. Both of us were in a transitional phase, working to liberate our inner child and claim our powe. Over five months, we exchanged tender emails across the ocean, building a connection that felt both intimate and timeless.

When we finally met in person for the photoshoot, it was during golden hour in Sunset Park, New York. The session flowed with such ease. There was a particular moment when Haruka looked into my eyes, bathed in golden sunlight, hugging a tree. In that instant, I felt like we had done this before—like we were two time travelers, doing exactly what we were meant to do. Haruka later shared that they felt as though their past, present, and future selves had all gathered.

Throughout this process, I felt a deep sense of trust and openness, a willingness to engage in this shared act of becoming. It reminded me that we are co-creating the future we want to live in by embodying our most authentic selves. This collaboration was a profound reminder of why I do this work—to create spaces where we can see and be seen, not just as we are, but as we are becoming.

For me, this work is also about ancestral healing and collective alchemy. By creating images that honor the complexity and beauty of queer people of color, I feel like I’m contributing to a larger tapestry of healing—one that stretches across generations. It’s a way of reclaiming narratives that have been erased or marginalized and offering a vision of wholeness. In these moments of connection and vulnerability, I feel the presence of my ancestors and the collective energy of all those who have fought for us to exist freely. I also wish to cast hope for future generations to grow with this kind of reference in mind. 

As someone who integrates your diasporic identity and embodied experiences into your art, how does your cultural background shape the visuals of your work?

My cultural background and upbringing in China are deeply embedded in the way I see and create art. I was born and raised in Hangzhou, a city with over 2,000 years of history, known as “the heaven on earth” filled with stunning temples, gardens, and pavilions. It’s also the setting of The Legend of the White Snake, a story that has been retold in countless ways, including a popular TV series that aired every summer during my childhood. In one version, two women played the main couple and fall in love—a narrative that, even as a child, felt quietly revolutionary to me. These early exposures to beauty, mythology, and subtle queerness shaped my imagination and my longing for stories that exist beyond the conventional.

Growing up in China in the 1990s, I witnessed the transition from analog to digital, which opened up a portal for me to access queer media from a young age. I lived two parallel lives: one in a conventional society where queerness carried significant stigma, and another on the internet, where I discovered vibrant queer communities and narratives from around the world. This duality made me crave more nuanced representations of queer lives—stories that weren’t just about struggle or triumph but about the quiet moments in between. In many ways, Liminal Space is my way of filling that gap for my younger self. 

In this series, I primarily use natural and environmental light to create a sense of intimacy and timelessness. I want to photograph queer people of color in their most relaxed, dreamy states—beyond the extremes of hypervisibility or invisibility. I want to see images of us resting, dreaming, cooking, hugging, and simply existing. These moments feel like a form of resistance and reclamation, a way of saying, ‘We are here, and we are whole.’ 

My diasporic identity also plays a significant role in my work. Moving to the United States in 2012 added another layer to my understanding of belonging and displacement. I often think about how people I photograph and I navigate these liminal spaces—between cultures, identities, and histories. Through this project, I’ve come to see my work as a form of ancestral healing and collective alchemy. It’s a way of reclaiming narratives that have been erased or marginalized and offering a vision of wholeness for ourselves and those who came before us.

You mention in your bio the importance of your nomadic roots, how has this untethered lifestyle affected your work as a photographer? As a person?

MC: Last year, I saw walking trees in Taiwan. They moves across the forest by growing new roots and relocating itself. I was mesmerized and felt deeply seen. As part of nature, I also follow the cycle of change. I’m constantly moving through different stages of comfort and growth. Maybe it’s in the nature of queer immigrants to constantly evolve and create environments for thriving. This untethered lifestyle has taught me resilience and the importance of building community wherever I go. 

My nomadic roots have also taught me to find beauty in impermanence and to embrace change as a constant. As a photographer, this has made me highly adaptable and open to new perspectives. I’m drawn to transient moments—the fleeting expressions, the shifting light, the quiet in-between spaces. As a person, it’s shaped my ability to connect with people from diverse backgrounds and to find a sense of home wherever I am. It’s also made me deeply curious about the stories of others, which is why my work often centers on human connection and shared experiences.

In this interview with Stas Ginzburg, we delve into the stories behind his photographs of New York City’s vibrant queer community. His project, Sanctuary, offers intimate portraits of the homes of queer, trans, and non-binary individuals, providing a window into their personal worlds and the spaces where they find refuge and expression.

Ginzburg’s work is on view through March 30, 2025 as part of Griffin Museum’s online exhibitions programming, Family Matters, focusing on LGBTQIA+ photographers, alongside the works of Jorge Ariel Escobar, Kyle Agnew, and Caleb Cole.

An interview with the artist follows.

Stas Ginzburg is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He immigrated to the U.S. from Russia as a queer Jewish refugee. In 2006, Ginzburg graduated from Parsons School of Design in NYC, where he studied photography. Since then, his practice has expanded to include sculpture, installation, and performance art. When the protests for racial justice ignited in May 2020, Ginzburg returned to photography to document faces of young activists fighting for Black liberation. He has focused on portrait photography ever since, with an emphasis on the LGBTQIA+ community.

In the fall of 2022, a selection of Ginzburg’s portraits of young queer and trans activists was exhibited at Broward College in Florida. His work was also shown at the Queens Museum and Photoville as part of ‘Live Pridefully, Caribbean Equality Project,’ in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Currently, his photography is on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of ‘Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize’ and Pace University Art Gallery, NY as part of ‘Critical Connections: Protest Photography Past + Present.’

Ginzburg’s images are featured in ‘Revolution Is Love: A Year of Black Trans Liberation,’ a book published by Aperture in the Fall of 2022.

Why are you drawn to portraits? And what’s your philosophy when interacting with these subjects to capture such intimacy?

Portraits tell a story not only about the sitter in the photograph but also about the person behind the lens. I see a bit of myself in every individual I photograph. It is the power of the queer community—we all share similar trauma and experiences. We all deal with rejection and fitting in, finding our path and persevering.

Perhaps these unspoken shared experiences allow me to connect with my subjects on such an intimate level. I am humbled and grateful that I am invited into the homes of my queer and trans siblings. I try to establish a comfortable and safe environment where every person is able to relax and present themselves in a way that feels authentic and dignified. I then use my camera to capture and enhance that feeling.

If a photograph is worth a thousand words, capturing the nuance and complexities of these subjects in one series is impossible. How do you approach fitting as much information about their personhood in a single shot?

It is truly impossible to tell a story of someone’s life in a single frame. An individual portrait is just a small snapshot of a moment in time. Human beings are far more complex than that. However, creating a series of such moments can begin to convey the broader experience of the community as a whole. When we look at the body of work, study people’s faces, what they wear, the objects that inhabit their bedrooms and living rooms, a collective portrait starts to emerge.

I often think of my work as an archive that cements my subjects’ place in history for future generations. Despite our current administration’s best efforts to silence and erase queer, trans, and non-binary folx, my photographs stand as proof that we are here, we exist, we thrive, and we are beautiful.

As a multidisciplinary artist you return to photography in 2020, Why did you have a stronger connection with this medium to capture that moment in time?

When the protests ignited at the end of May 2020, I felt the urge to get out into the streets and see for myself what was happening. There was a lot of confusion and misinformation on the news, and I needed to experience things firsthand. At first, I wasn’t even bringing my camera to the marches because, at the time, I was interested in other forms of art—mainly sculpture and performance. My goal was to observe, listen, and learn.

I quickly realized that this was a historic moment that required documentation. I was in awe of the young generation leading these marches, speaking out about the issues, and sharing their experiences. I started making portraits of people I met in the streets. I remember feeling like a fish back in water, realizing just how much I had missed photography. This newfound excitement for the medium, coupled with the energy of the streets, marked the beginning of a new chapter in my practice.

Being from Russia but based in New York, can you explain your relationship between place and community and/or how you’ve built community while working in an urban setting?

My family immigrated to the U.S. in 1999 when I was 15 and just beginning to come to terms with my queer identity. Up until that point, I didn’t know a single queer or trans person, as it was such a taboo lifestyle in my hometown. There wasn’t a community I could relate to, or at least, I hadn’t discovered one yet at such a young age. 

When we moved here, I was busy adjusting to my new life. I started high school in Brooklyn right away and had to brush up on my English. I struggled to relate to my American peers because our upbringings were so vastly different. It wasn’t until college that I began exploring who I was as a gay man. 

In reality, it wasn’t until much later that I found my true community and chosen family. In late June of 2020, while photographing in the streets, I came across a group of queer and trans folx called The Stonewall Protests. This space, created by two Black trans women, Qween Jean and Joela Rivera, specifically uplifted queer and trans people of color who were underrepresented in the broader Black Lives Matter movement. This community gathered every Thursday in Greenwich Village and marched across the city, often stopping in the middle of the streets to burst into spontaneous runways and voguing balls—an expression of queer joy and resistance. 

It was within this space that I met many people who have since embraced me as their chosen family. I have photographed folx in the streets over and over again and I have now photographed them in their homes. We’ve become close friends outside of the protest scene and we continue to check in and care for one another. I am forever grateful to this community for showing me the power of chosen family and teaching me about radical love, mutual aid, the importance of holding space, and that none of us are free until Black trans woman is liberated.  

We love the sequencing of these images. Why did you pick these specific photographs and what is the conversation they are having with each other? 

This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to publish all 19 photographs in the portfolio at once. While I’ve only been working on this series for two years, my goal is to create a collection of 40–50 portraits, enough to fill a book. 

For this particular sequence, I thought about how each subject’s energy complements or contrasts with the next. Some portraits are close-ups with bold pops of color, while others recede into the environment and are more introspective. Together, they create a rhythm that reflects the diversity and beauty of the community. My hope is that this arrangement invites the viewer to move through the portfolio thoughtfully, discovering new connections by taking in each individual story, while simultaneously piecing together a collective narrative.

In this interview with Kyle Agnew we learn the parallels between the Indiana Dunes, the phenomenon of Magenta as a color, and capturing joyfulness with Kyle’s queer identity and analog photographic practice. In this dialogue exchange, we discuss their project, Our Cheeks Blushed Amidst Prairie Grasses.

Kyle Agnew’s work is on view through March 30, 2025 as part of Griffin Museum’s online exhibitions programming, Family Matters, focusing on LGBTQIA+ photographers from, alongside the works of Jorge Ariel Escobar, Stas Ginzburg, and Caleb Cole.

Kyle Agnew is an Indiana native and received his BFA in photography from the University of Indianapolis in Indianapolis, Indiana. Kyle’s practice is a colorful, sentimental, cluttered closet where dreams can be written into reality through our imaginations. Kyle often works from a large archive of collective familial objects passed down from their grandmother to his mother, and now to him. They ponder this collection and its authenticity to all aspects of his identity, as well as using it as source material to create new queer fairytales and express a more multifaceted idea of queer love. Through exploration of the motifs and symbols these kitschy objects hold Kyle implores their audience to meditate on ideas of gender signaling, heteronormativity, and the nuances of queer love.

Our Cheeks Blushed Amidst Prairie Grasses

In the cannon of photography when queerness is invited to the table to be discussed, it often is observed through the voyeuristic lens of a queer male photographing a fellow queer male in the nude. Though rejoicing in the body and sexual experience that comprises a slice of queer life proves valuable, an over glorification of these images minimizes the complexity of the queer identity. Growing up in the Midwest, queer love was reduced to a purely physical and sexual presence – something deemed disturbing by the hegemonic gaze, I transgress this to propose an expanded view of queerness in the landscape as an embodiment of my experience.

bell hooks puts it best when stating that “[being] Queer’ [is] not as being about who you’re having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but ‘queer’ as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
What does queer love look like? How can we position queer love as a natural component within our more than human world? How do I tell my partner I love and long for him across hundreds of miles of distance? Through the photographic investigation of the Indiana Dunes, the site of my engagement, and the Iowan prairie, the place me and my partner now reside, I challenge oversimplified views of queer love by expanding naturalist heteronormative narratives of the landscape. Furthering this conversation, my partner and I perform still-lifes in our interior domestic space in search for a view of queerness that implores the romantic, complex, effeminate, and saccharine. Queerness isn’t detached from the landscape but is innate to our world and its inhabitants, from the cellular to the sunset.

A Q&A with the artist follows:

Materiality plays an important role in your work. Where does the importance of touch come from in your practice, and in specific, to photography?

Before I entered and began graduate school I worked full time at the Indiana State Museum as an Engagement Specialist where I developed educational material for guests to engage with throughout the exhibits. This allowed me access to the Paintings of Frank Dudley, a Landscape painter from Indiana who documents the sensation of the Indiana Dunes in his paintings in effort to capture the Indiana Dunes in efforts to help conserve the landscape. These landscape paintings became a large source of inspiration for my body of work. I knew I wanted to offer the landscape a moment of intervention into the film so it can make a mark on the image physically and Visually. Dudley’s paintings are often romantic and impressionist as they offer the idea of the beauty of the space instead of a direct representation. His brush strokes are present, precise, and intervene onto the landscape; this offers Dudley a place to express his emotional ties to the Dunes. Through activating touch on the film by integrating sand, water, and other ephemera from the dunes into the development process I hope to activate the dunes as a collaborator with me instead of something I have control over. As if the dunes itself kissed the film it is able to make a mark like a painter onto the image of itself. I was very inspired and moved by artist Odette England who engages with the surface of film to embed a sense of emotionality and intent to the work beyond just the preserved image, such as in her image “Dad 3 Right Foot” where and image of her childhood farm is photographed, taped to the bottom of her fathers shoe, and then walked on around the space. Instead of having another person intervene though I ask the Indiana Dunes itself to collaborate with me and kiss the images with its sand to leave marks of our love there.

Can you explain your choice in using landscape photographs for this series exploring family and being in community (or apart from them)?  

When I first began graduate school I was making a lot of still lives and self portraits as I tried to navigate what I wanted to explicitly explore for my thesis and I kept coming to this feeling of loneliness and isolation from my loved ones that were now a few states away. The only way I knew to try and resolve this was to document the space in between us, physically, leading me to landscape photography. This became more focused though after my Fiance Walter Saide proposed to me at the Indiana Dunes, This space now held this event and our love and I wanted to try and show how the landscape and queerness could be tied together. My entire life growing up in Indiana Queerness was always positioned as something “unnatural” or not normal, by tieing queerness to the land as a normal function of ecosystems and animal groups beyond the human I hope to see that being queer is something normal across species beyond our own and not something to feel shame around but to be proud of. You are just as natural as two swans in love, the sand on the beach, or a group of clovers. 

You use the term “gender signaling” to describe your work. How do you use that concept in your overall work in ways that might not be as readily evident?

Throughout my work I think about what I present and what my audience infers from what I am presenting to them, these pink dream fields often feel soft and feminine which contrast to our more masculine bodies. This is in efforts to help show that anyone can like any color and that pink for me is reclaimed as this queer signifier of love.

 I also am an antique collector building upon an archive of Salt and Pepper shakers my Grandmother passed down to me. These figurines appear alongside figures throughout my bodies of work and are always presented as a “set” or “couple”. These figures also usually present in a stereotypical male female way due to this coupling of a set. The Shakers I collect and show though are either very feminine and still present as a set or couple queering them or vice versa. 

The color pink is used in many of your works, can you explain your personal connection to color and the representation of your queer identity?

Pink first is my favorite color, during my time in undergrad I became associated with it due to my interest in 1950-60 mid century design where color is used more playfully across decor of the era, especially in the kitsch. I think that is where and why this color felt right for this project is that sense of kitschy sentimentality I am occupying. The pink signals a feeling of warmth, a feeling of love, a feeling of belonging but is also a little kitschy and campy to indulge in it in such a way. I also want to use it unabashedly as a male identifying individual people do not always think that is okay in places I grew up when it is just a color like any other. I also wanted to use a color you can find in nature and that is a “natural” hue to our environment. In my first apartment in Iowa the sunset a brilliant pink or red evernight into my place. Seeing that color every night made me feel like I belonged even when other spaces made me feel differently. As a result, I went out every night during this pink hour and photographed my environment. It began the search for and insertion of pink into the natural spaces feeling as if I was looking for places that already understood my emotional headspace through color alone. 

I also think about the history of the color magenta. Magenta is a color that is chemically derived instead of made from natural ingredients. Magenta when first presented is a green crystal but when dissolved in water does it create this magenta hue. People even argue that magenta doesn’t exist because their is not a magenta wavelength of light. This story felt familiar to queer people as we are told we are unnatural or don’t exist when I see the sky turn magenta every night, or the magenta bloom of a local flower. That magenta exist and is apart of our landscape.

You take a playful and saccharine approach to this series’ theme, have you ever felt any pressure to make work that is different?

I feel pressure all the time to do different work. Before this body of work I made much darker melancholic work about self acceptance, but moving forward I wanted to make work and if that work was about my queerness I wanted it to be joyful and sweet at least for now. It felt important to make this for me in a way that felt like a hug from your partner, even though relationships are really complex I wanted to show the best of times and the overall love I feel for my Partner and making work around love that is uplifting. I think of the body of work in a similar way tonally as a love song or a young adult romance novel, where emotionality is hightented to portray the intensity of these feelings that may be reduced in the moment. I think about artists such as Clifford Prince King and Pixy Liao who navigate the world of love and relationships and what that can look like in a playful optimistic way.

We are thrilled to announce the 10 finalists of the 2024 Richards Family Prize. A huge thank you to the hundreds of artists who submitted their incredible works for consideration and to Aline Smithson for carefully reviewing every single one of them.

Smithson remarks: “This was truly one of the best groups of submissions I’ve seen in a long while. There was so much significant work submitted that it was almost impossible to narrow hundreds of projects down to one. Thank you to all who submitted for elevating the craft with such powerful, personal, and meaningful projects that make me so excited to be part of this special community of seers and thinkers. Thank you also to the Griffin Museum of Photography for establishing this incredible award.”

2024 Richards Family Prize Winner | Izabella Demavlys

Izabella Demavlys is a Swedish born photographer and filmmaker based in NYC. She studied photography at the Royal Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, as well as Parsons School of Design in New York. For many years she focused on fashion photography, but in the fall of 2009, she decided to travel to Pakistan to pursue documentary work about women who had suffered brutal acid attacks.

Her work has been published in Vogue, Marie Claire, The New York Times, WSJ and VICE.

2024 Finalists

Yorgos Efthymiadis | The Lighthouse Keepers

Yorgos Efthymiadis is an artist/curator from Greece who resides in Somerville, MA. A board member of Somerville Arts Council and chair of the Visual Arts Fellowship Grants since 2017, Efthymiadis is also a reviewer for the Lenscratch Student Prize Awards since 2023 and finds it very fulfilling to help fellow photographers and give back to the photographic community.

An awardee of the Artist’s Resource Trust A.R.T. Grant in 2024, a finalist for the 2017 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, and the recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation 2017 Emerging Artist Award, Efthymiadis has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston.

In 2015 he created a gallery in his own kitchen, titled The Curated Fridge. The idea behind this project is to celebrate fine art photography and connect photographers with established and influential curators, gallerists, publishers and artists from around the world through free, quarterly curated calls. The Curated Fridge recently celebrated 9 years of exhibitions, featuring more than 1500 artists in 38 shows juried by 44 guest curators.

Yuki Furusawa

Yuki Furusawa is a Japanese photographer and book artist, based in both Hong Kong and Japan. Furusawa discovers strong emotional feelings revealed by the intimacy of her close relationships with her family. She creates artist books that use various textured media, which are dependent on her emotional response. The familiar physicality of the book is essential in her intimate works.

Furusawa graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design Hong Kong in 2017 with Master of Arts in Photography. Her work has exhibited in Hong Kong and Japan. She participated in Hong Kong Photo Book Fair 2016. Her work is part of the SCAD Library Permanent Special Collection.

Pia Paulina Guilmoth

Pia-Paulina Guilmoth lives and creates art in rural central Maine. She is a working-class transgender woman who resides with her girlfriend and two cats in a small, treehouse-like space inside a very old shoe factory on the bank of the Sandy River.

In her free time, Pia enjoys laying in the dirt, holding her friends, and trespassing into abandoned houses and barns. Her work is primarily about harnessing beauty as a form of resistance in a world full of terrors. While creating art, she reflects on themes such as class, gender, euphoria, dysphoria, and the ways queer community can flourish in rural areas.

Her current project, Flowers Drink the River, portrays the queer community she belongs to in rural central Maine and explores her search for magic and beauty in the landscapes surrounding her home.

Alena Grom

Ukrainian artist and documentary photographer Alena Grom was born in Donetsk. In April 2014, she was compelled to leave her hometown due to the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Since 2017, she has resided in Bucha, a town near Kyiv. Following the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, Grom and her family became refugees for the second time, but returned after Bucha was de-occupied.
These experiences have profoundly influenced her artistic practice. Photography has served as a lifeline for her, allowing her to confront the traumatic realities of war. Since 2016, Alena Grom has centered her work on locations affected by military aggression, capturing the lives of war victims, migrants, refugees.
Grom operates at the confluence of social reporting and conceptual photography, often working on her themes from the front lines. She perceives her “mission” as documenting the lives of individuals caught in the “gray zones” or near military conflicts. Through her photographs, she aims to inform the global community about the complexities of wartime life, the tragedies of
Importantly, her images do not exist merely as illustrations of sorrow or grief. One of her primary themes is the persistence of life amidst adversity.
Alena Grom has received recognition as a laureate and winner in numerous international photography contest:

Rodrigo Illescas

Rodrigo Illescas was born in Bahía Blanca, Province of Buenos Aires, in 1983.
He is an architect and photographer. He published the books, “Asimismo, todo aquello” (2007), declared of Cultural Interest by the National Secretariat of Culture; and “Razia” (2011).
He is currently a professor at the University of Buenos Aires.

Awards (selection): Global GFX FujiFilm Challenge; 1st prize Felix Schoeller Photo Award; Leica Finalist, Oskar Barnack; Grand Prix, PhotoDays Festival, Rovinj, Croatia; 1st Prize, Portraits, PoyLatam, Mexico; 1st prize, Best Portfolio, “Transversalidades”, Portugal; Honorable Mention, Provincial Visual Arts Salon Florencia Molina Campos.

Exhibitions (selection): Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Italy; Somerset House, London; Museum of Cultural History in Osnabrück, Germany; CCK, Argentina; among others.

Work in Collection: Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb; National University of Villa María, Córdoba; Private Collections in London, Madrid and Andorra.

Pedro Ledesma III

Born in South Dakota and raised in a small town in Texas, Pedro has always appreciated wide, open spaces and small communities. Exploring the world and embracing his Korean-Mexican heritage have given Pedro a unique understanding of family and culture. From Texas public schools to MIT and Columbia University, Pedro’s education has been a constant source of inspiration and fueled his lifelong curiosity. His diverse background, including work on Wall Street, research in international development economics, and experience as a teacher, informs his understanding of global dynamics.

Pedro’s photography journey has evolved from documenting beauty in everyday moments to using his camera as a tool for social change, echoing the justice-focused themes he probed in economics. He explores the complexities of social and economic inequities, alongside his own identity in America as a mixed-race, Southern Baptist-raised, Ivy League graduate. Through his creative work, Pedro aims to spark positive change towards greater equality by exploring how these national issues unfold on the stage of small town America.

Matthew Ludak

Matthew Ludak is a documentary photographer and photojournalist focusing on long-term projects about economic disparity, de-industrialization, and environmentalism in the United States.

Published and exhibited internationally, in 2021 Ludak received an Artist Fellowship from New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In 2022 his work was shown in the Wisconsin Biennial at the Museum of Wisconsin Art and the Soho Photo Gallery in New York City. In 2022 he had his first solo and international exhibition in Braga, Portugal, as part of their annual Photography and Visual Arts Festival. In 2022 Ludak was invited to attend the prestigious Eddie Adam’s workshop in Calicoon, New York where he received the National Geographic award for his work. In 2024 Ludak was included in GUP Magazines FRESH EYES International 2024 Talent, as well as receiving an Award of Excellence from the Alexia Foundation.

Ludak’s work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Economist, TIME, Bloomberg, and Fox Business.

He holds a BA in History and English from Drew University, a Certificate in Documentary Studies from the International Center for Photography, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.    

Emily Hanako Momohara

Emily Hanako Momohara was born in Seattle, Washington where she grew up in a mixed race family. Her work centers around issues of heritage  multiculturalism, immigration and social justice. 

Momohara has exhibited nationally, most notably at the Japanese American National Museum in a two-person show titled Sugar|Islands. She has been a visiting artist at several residency programs including the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Headlands Center for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center and Red Gate Gallery Beijing.  In 2015, her work was included in the Chongqing Photography and Video Biennial. Momohara has created socially driven billboards for For Freedoms and United Photo Industries. She lives and works in Cincinnati where she serves as the Interim Studio Arts Chair, a Professor and heads the photography major at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

Xan Padrón

Galician photographer Xan Padrón (Ourense, Spain, 1969) received his first camera at the hands of the photojournalist Enrique Reza, who awoke in him a passion for the photography of the everyday, just as his father, the journalist Luís Padrón, awoke in him the patience to listen and observe stories.

After diverse street photography projects in New York City (Human City, Motion City, Visions of New York), in 2011 he began his acclaimed project, “Time Lapse”: a collection of portraits of various cities through the people who inhabit them. His series Time Lapse has been exhibited, among other places, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, The Pfizer Building in New York, and the Sala Valente in Spain. Xan Padrón’s artwork is held in corporate and private collections across the globe.
In 2023, Padrón was invited by the MTA Arts & Design Program to exhibit at the Bryant Park subway station in New York City. His work has been featured in international publications such as New England Review, Die Zeit Magazine, and Photo World Magazine, as well as in the cover of academic anthologies like “Race, Class and Gender in the United States” (MacMillan, 2020) and “Personal Networks” (Cambridge University Press, 2021). His Time Lapses were also selected for the Art on Link program by the City of New York.
 Xan Padrón’s career as a photographer is deeply intertwined with his previous profession as a professional musician. For over a decade, he toured with his bass and his camera, capturing life surrounding the musicians he collaborated with. As a photographer of artists and concerts, he has worked in an official capacity for APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals, United States) and has contributed to publications such as Inside Arts and The Writer Magazine (United States).Xan Padrón shares his life with musician, educator, and writer Cristina Pato. Since 2005, he spends his time between Galicia and New York City and has his studio at Mana Contemporary (NJ). 

We had the opportunity to speak the 2024 winner of the John Chervinsky Emerging Photographer Scholarship, Bridget Jourgensen. Her exploration of solitude, light and composition in her series Homeshadows captivated this year’s jury to earn her a monetary award, an upcoming exhibition and artist talk at the Griffin Museum as well as a volume from the collection of photographer John Chervinsky.

A Q&A with the artist follows.

Homeshadows was your first intentional series and attempt at cohesive storytelling through images. What was it about shadows (and light) that led you to produce this series? 

I think the shadows found me, leading me on an unexpected journey. I first noticed them the day I moved into our 300 year-old home and they caught my attention right away. After a few weeks of observing, I decided to document them. I began to note the best times of day and would actively look for them, captivated by their shifting forms.  Not yet knowing how the seasons would transform the interplay of shadow and light, I felt committed to capturing the year’s passage through images. The old, paned windows in my home added a playful geometry to some of the shots, and the mature trees provided movement.   I started positioning myself in the path of light which created a bit of tension and mystery to the images that I found appealing.  I came to understand the sun path and rhythm of the house very well.  Throughout the year, I worked to capture the layers, texture, and mood of these moments.  I also wanted to cultivate a feeling of ‘home’ by including glimpses of personal items—a pillow, a fan, a matchbox—that grounded the scenes in the simplicity of daily life.

Almost five years have passed since the height of the pandemic. Where are you now creatively?

That’s a tough question because my feelings about artistic direction and the creative process can shift daily. Some days, I feel a lack of inspiration. On others, I’m overflowing with ideas and energy. Recently, alongside preparing for my upcoming exhibit at the Griffin Museum, I’ve been coordinating work for two additional exhibits here in Providence which have demanded considerable time and effort.  As a result, I haven’t had my camera out as much as usual. I’m really looking forward to getting back to shooting in January, with a fresh focus and renewed creativity.

Congratulations on your first solo exhibition! What is the most exciting part about having an upcoming exhibition at the museum?

So much about it excites me.  Above all, it’s an honor to have my work recognized by the museum—it feels both affirming and humbling. As an emerging artist, I’m learning much about presenting and discussing my work, coordinating with others, and navigating the professional art world.    This experience has been invaluable, and I’m grateful to everyone at the museum who has supported me along the way.  The exhibition will give me the confidence to move forward with a greater sense of focus and professionalism. It is a very proud moment for me, and for my family and friends as well.

How have you been preparing for the show?

I began by revisiting the images for the show, making sure each one was properly edited. Once I was satisfied, I started to work with a local printer, but soon realized they weren’t the best fit for this project.   I then moved to a second printer, and after several test prints and revisions, I am delighted with the results we achieved.

Next, I brought the work to the framer, where we made further decisions about the final presentation. To help with print size and framing choices,  I visited the Griffin Gallery twice, simply to get a feel for the space where my work will be displayed. I’ve also been attending artists’ talks, speaking with other artists about their own exhibition experiences, and gathering tips and feedback. These insights are helping me prepare for and deliver what I hope will be a captivating exhibit and gallery talk for the museum.

Looking at the work of John Chervisnky, do you find any similarities between your oeuvres? 

Such an interesting question.  John was known for works that explored the concept of time and perspective, and it seems that he approached his craft in an extremely precise and academic way.  In the case of my project Homeshadows, you could say that it, too, is an exploration of time and perspective, so I see a strong similarity there.  I also appreciate that John, like me, was self-taught in the art of photography and had a full and successful career for years before deciding to devote himself to his craft.  And it’s not lost on me that we both had our first solo exhibition at the Griffin Museum.

What’s in store for you in terms of art-making?

I’m eager to continue a project I started last year and will be working on in the coming months.  The series will be a collection of images featuring solitary figures—women or possibly young girls—in a wooded setting, each incorporating fabric or netting as a prominent element in the composition. I don’t want to reveal too much just yet!

In addition, as an exhibiting member of the Providence Art Club, I participate in both member and juried shows throughout the year.  When time allows, I like to take classes and attend workshops to develop my craft. There’s plenty to keep me busy.

Finally, has there been an exhibition at the Griffin Museum that you’ve really enjoyed and you’d like to recommend?  

I discovered the Griffin Museum about 20 years ago when I was introduced to it by a friend.   At the time, I was living in Lynn, Massachusetts, and would visit the museum once a year or so to see the latest exhibits. The Griffin is truly special—not just for its unique architecture and history, but for its dynamic and ever-evolving programs and exhibits. Since moving to Providence, I don’t visit in person as often, but I stay engaged with what’s happening there.  I was especially captivated by the Artificial Intelligence exhibit, particularly Phillip Toledano’s Another America project. Lynne Breitfeller’s After the Fire: Water Damaged, which I saw in person, was hauntingly beautiful and left a lasting impression on me.

Frazier King is a photographer, collector and curator, living and working in Houston, TX. His photography work focuses on constructed still life with use of film and gelatin silver prints as well as digital capture and archival pigment prints. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in the collections of many individuals along with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France; and Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He has been a collector since the 1990s. During his 15 years serving as a member of the board of directors of HCP, he curated or co-curated exhibitions and participated as a reviewer in photography portfolio review events around the world.

With the Griffin’s opening of The Collector’s Eye: A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries, we compiled a list of questions for Frazier to get detailed insight of his journey in collecting.

You call your collection “accidental” as your acquisitions come from a place of impulse and intuition rather than strategic planning and research. Do you ever take a step back to look at your collection in its entirety and introspect on these “purely visceral responses” that have allowed it to evolve into what it is today?

this is a great question!  My collecting process started in earnest in 2000 but, due to a demanding legal career and an intense schedule of both HCP board membership duties and a photographic practice with associated events, I had not really taken a reflective moment until 2012.  Early that year Wendy Watriss, one of the founders of FotoFest, decided to present my collection as the second exhibition in the Collector’s Eye series.  At the time, in the statement for the exhibit I did indeed describe the collection as “accidental” because its acquisition process happened without a specific plan.  However, the task of developing a statement for the exhibition gave me the opportunity to examine the works and to address the nature of the collection–both how it came to be and exactly what it had become.  I gave gallery talks each Saturday while the exhibit was on display.  This gave the chance to explore the nature of the prints and determine both the sources and the meaning of the impulses driving the collection.  While I promised Wendy at the time that I would produce a catalog of the exhibition, I was far too busy with work and my own photography to be able to do it. However, when I retired in 2014 I started to work on my promise.  It quickly became obvious that it was long past the time when a catalog would be appropriate.  Therefore, I undertook to make a book with an essay.  Wendy also contributed an essay as did Madeline Yale Preston, the Executive Director of the Houston Center for Photography during a large portion of the time I was collecting.  I took the FotoFest name for the exhibit plus my own explanatory statement and called it The Collector’s Eye– A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries.

We had the opportunity to ask Ville Kansanen a few questions about his experience as an artist-in-residence at the Griffin Museum. Kansanen exhibited a series of photo-based projects and installations, including Mojave Portals, Arid Harbingers and the site-specific installation Salting the Earth from July 22 – October 15, 2023.

A Q&A with the artist follows.

Applications for our Cummings Residency are open through October 31, 2024.
Apply now through Café.

Ville Kansanen (b.1984) is a Finnish multidisciplinary artist based in California. He works with photography, video, installation and land art. His work has been featured in several print- and online publications such as American Photo Magazine, GUP Magazine, SFAQ and Diffusion Magazine. Ville’s awards include a Lucie Award and IPA Fine Art Photographer of the Year. His first monograph was released by Datz Press in 2022. He has exhibited internationally with non-profit and private galleries.

Follow Ville on Instagram: @villekansanen

What are you working on now a year from your residency?

I’m primarily focused on developing new directions for my art practice, and focusing on my design career at the moment.

How did the work you created on site at the museum expanded or impacted your practice?

The residency afforded me the time and space to work with very demanding physical installation for the very first time. That gave me the confidence to stage sculptures and site specific installations at the Marshall Gallery in Los Angeles earlier this year.

How was your time in Winchester like?

I enjoyed the slower pace of the Winchester. I didn’t have as much time enjoying the town as I would’ve liked. The beautiful grounds at the Griffin Museum made me think of my home country Finland. I very much hope I can come back again soon.

What did the Cummings Fellowship mean for your art practice?

It was an incredibly valuable lesson in proportionality, planning, and perseverance. The residency gave me the courage to continue making even more ambitious and difficult work in the future.