Collaborations | Wendy Ewald

ASMP’s New England, New York and Connecticut chapters and the Griffin Museum of Photography are proud to host photographer Wendy Ewald for an online program. Wendy has had a long and relatively unconventional photography career. Her photography is not done for a client or even necessarily for herself. Her projects are typically community based and collaborative. She, along with her subjects, document the unseen and emotional which forges deep understanding for them and viewers. Often Wendy’s subjects write on or alter the photographs, meaning the final image is co-created by photographer and subject.

Her projects include Portraits and Dreams with children in Kentucky, Retratos y Sueños with children in Chiapas Mexico, Black Self / White Self with children in Durham, North Carolina, and American Alphabets with children in the US and internationally reimagining what education could be. Please visit the “Work” section of Wendy’s website to see these projects and more.

Wendy shows photography can be more than a transactional process of making images; for both the subject and the photographer, it can reveal, connect, and inform profoundly. But, it can only do so when it is done with a deeply empathetic approach.

Wendy will talk about her four decades doing this work and share how she makes a living doing it. This talk will prove fascinating and useful to anyone interested in photography from beginners to seasoned commercial photographers looking to understand a more relational way of doing photography.

Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum, will share in the facilitation of the Q and A following.

About Wendy Ewald

For over forty years, Wendy Ewald has collaborated on photography projects with children, families, women, workers and teachers. She has worked in the United States, Labrador, Colombia, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Holland, Mexico and Tanzania. Her projects start as documentary investigations and move on to probe questions of identity and cultural differences.

With each situation, she uses different processes and materials to shift her point of view and engage with her subjects. Her work may be understood as a kind of conceptual art focused on expanding the role of esthetic discourse in pedagogy and creating a new concept of imagery that challenges the viewer to see beneath the surface of relationships.

View Wendy Ewald’s website.