Lecture: Text + Image: Shifting Perceptions with Alexa Dilworth and Aline Smithson (Online)

The Griffin Museum of Photography is delighted to offer this lecture/dialogue/presentation with two photography powerhouses, Alexa Dilworth  and Aline Smithson, as part of our programming to accompany the 26th Annual Juried Members Exhibition.

Text + Image: Shifting Perceptions examines the relationships between images and texts in a photobook or as part of a photographic project. Words create another layer of description, sometimes as a respite from images and sometimes as a way of elevating and complicating photographs. The skillful combination of text and images transcends simple storytelling and is an art unto itself. Alexa comes to the subject as the publishing director and senior editor at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University, having worked at DoubleTake magazine, on myriad monographs, and with photographers and writers who have won CDS’s awards. Aline’s exploration of the power of text and image is garnered from her experiences in creating her own works and as the founding editor of Lenscratch. Join us to be inspired by the limitless and transformative possibilities that these two art forms have when in conversation with each other.

Cover image: Duane Michals, This Photograph is My Proof

About Alexa Dilworth and Aline Smithson:

Alexa Dilworth is the juror for the 26th Annual Juried Members Exhibition at the Griffin Museum. She is publishing director and senior editor at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University, where she also directs the awards program, which includes the CDS Documentary Essay Prize in Writing and Photography and the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize, and the DocX lab. In 1995 she was hired by CDS to work on the editorial staff for DoubleTake magazine. She was also hired as editor of the CDS books program at that time and has coordinated the publishing efforts for every CDS book, including the recent and forthcoming books Road Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorialby Jessica Ingram; Where We Find Ourselves: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum, 1897–1922, edited by Margaret Sartor and Alex Harris; Test of Faith: Signs, Serpents, Salvation: Photographs by Lauren Pond; Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound, Second Edition, edited by John Biewen and Alexa Dilworth; and Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila: Photographs by Nadia Sablin. Dilworth has a BA and an MA, both in English, from the University of Florida, and an MFA in creative writing (poetry) from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Aline Smithson is a visual artist, educator, and editor based in Los Angeles, California. Best known for her conceptual portraiture and a practice that uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography. Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, her work is influenced by the elevated unreal. She received a BA in art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, studying under artists such as William Wegman, Allen Ruppersburg, and Charles Garabian. After a decade-long career as a New York Fashion Editor, Aline returned to Los Angeles and to her own artistic practice. She has exhibited widely including over 40 solo shows at institutions such as the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the Shanghai, Lishui, and Pingyqo Festivals in China, The Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco, the Center of Fine Art Photography in Colorado, the Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona and Paris, and the Verve Gallery in Santa Fe. In addition, her work is held in a number of public collections and her photographs have been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, PDN (cover), the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Eyemazing, Soura, Visura, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines.

Aline is the Founder and Editor- in-Chief of Lenscratch, a daily journal on photography and  has been teaching at the Los Angeles Center of Photography since 2001. In 2012, Aline received the Rising Star Award through the Griffin Museum of Photography for her contributions to the photographic community. In 2014, Aline’s work was selected for the Critical Mass Top 50 and she received the Excellence in Teaching Award from CENTER. In 2015, the Magenta Foundation published her first significant monograph, Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography. In 2016, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum commissioned Aline to a series of portraits for the upcoming Faces of Our PlanetExhibition. Her work is currently on exhibition with the National Portrait Gallery in London as a finalist in the Taylor Wessing Prize. Kris Graves Projects commissioned Aline to create LOST II: Los Angelesto be published in April 2019. She is a dedicated film shooter.