Winchester

Photosynthesis XIX is a collaboration between Burlington High School and Winchester High School facilitated by the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Join us on Thursday June 13th from 6 to 8pm for an Artist Reception to celebrate these talented students’ works and meet their instructors and supporters.

Now in its nineteenth year, this 5-month program connects 12 students with each other and with professional photographers, artists, and curators. Using photography as a visual language, students increase their vocabulary to communicate about themselves and the world around them. Interacting with fellow students from different programs, backgrounds, and schools, the students create a capsule of who they are in this moment, learning from each other to create a united exhibition showcasing all they have learned during the program.

The participating student artists from Winchester High School:

Mia Cafarella | Sabrina Dorr | Mikayla Ferguson | Maggie Shevland | Bowden Simpson | Julia Valcourt

The participating student artists from Burlington High School:

Sean Cox | Mackenzie Goldsmith | Emersyn Kirchner | Alex McGillivray | Taylor Papagno | Alessia Pedruzzi

Ceding Ground is a view of our changing climate through the eyes of six photographers, all grasping with the question of loss of habitat, groundwater and climate change.  Simon Norfolk’s two series, When I am laid in Earth and Shroud focus on retreating ice in Africa and Europe. Jason Lindsey’s Cracks in the Ice is a metaphorical and scientific look at glaciation. Camille Seaman’s Melting Away exposes us to habitat loss for the penguins of Antartica. Hidden Waters is Bremner Benedict’s look at the water crisis in the Western United States. Ellen Konar & Steve Goldband expose us to climate change through the study of tree rings in Cut Short. Outside the museum we have Dawn Watson’s Alchemy, an abstract look at the elements that surround us and Ville Kansanen’s site specific installations connecting the museum to the surroundings engaging Judkin’s Pond as a partner in his vision to talk about the fragility of aquatic resources.

Simon Norfolk | When I am Laid In Earth & Shroud

Simon Norfolk is a landscape photographer whose work over twenty years has been themed around a probing and stretching of the meaning of the word ‘battlefield’ in all its forms. As such, he has photographed in some of the world’s worst war-zones and refugee crises, but is equally at home photographing supercomputers used to design military systems or the test-launching of nuclear missiles. Time’s layeredness in the landscape is an ongoing fascination of his.

His work has been widely recognised: he has won The Discovery Prize at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2005; The Infinity Prize from The International Center of Photography in 2004; and he was winner of the European Publishing Award, 2002. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Citibank Prize now known as the Deutsche Börse Prize and in 2013 he won the Prix Pictet Commission. He has won multiple World Press Photo and Sony World Photography awards.

He has produced four monographs of his work including ‘Afghanistan: Chronotopia’ (2002) which was published in five languages; ‘For Most Of It I Have No Words’ (1998) about the landscapes of genocide; and ‘Bleed’ (2005) about the war in Bosnia. His most recent is ‘Burke + Norfolk; Photographs from the War in Afghanistan.’ (2011).

He has work held in major collections such as The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The Getty in Los Angeles as well as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Wilson Centre for Photography and the Sir Elton John Collection. His work has been shown widely and internationally from Brighton to Ulaanbaatar and in 2011 his ‘Burke + Norfolk’ work was one of the first ever photography solo shows at Tate Modern in London.

He has been described by one critic as ‘the leading documentary photographer of our time. Passionate, intelligent and political; there is no one working in photography that has his vision or his clarity.’ He is currently running at a pretty nifty Number 44 on ‘The 55 Best Photographers of all Time. In the History of the World. Ever. Definitely.’

Simon Norfolk’s Shroud was made in collaboration with Klaus Thymann of Project Pressure, “a charity with a mission to visualize climate change.”

Camille Seaman | Melting Away : A Penguins Life

Camille Seaman was born in 1969. She graduated in 1992 from the State University of New York at Purchase, where she studied photography with Jan Groover and John Cohen. Her photographs have been published in National Geographic Magazine, Italian Geo, German GEO, TIME, The New York Times Sunday magazine, Newsweek, Outside, Zeit Wissen, Men’s Journal, Seed, Camera Arts, Issues, PDN, and American Photo among many others, She frequently leads photographic workshops. Her photographs have received many awards including: a National Geographic Award, 2006; and the Critical Mass Top Monograph Award, 2007. She is a TED Senior Fellow, Stanford Knight Fellow as well as a Cinereach Filmmaker in Residence Fellow.

Camille Seaman strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature.

Bremner Benedict | Hidden Waters

Benedict’s projects center on the role that landscape plays in the human experience – on unseen,  ordinary places –  what they reveal about our attitudes and relationship to the natural world and the potential consequences of what we choose to not to value. Her focus for the last six years has been on drought  climate change and overuse of water in the arid landscapes in North America.

Benedict’s images are at Fidelity Art Boston; Center for Photography, Tucson; Florida Museum of Photographic Arts; New Mexico Museum of Art; Decordova Museum of Art and Sculpture; Harvard’s Fogg Museum; and George Eastman Museum. Solo exhibitions include Florida Museum of Photographic Arts; Griffin Museum of Photography at Stoneham; Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX; and Philadelphia Print Center. Hidden Waters archive resides in the Museum of Art & Environment, Reno Nevada; Benedict is a member of Blue Earth Alliance and the Long Now.

Awards include: CENTER Santa Fe- Project Launch Award, Juror’s Award, Karen Haas Juror, Conversations with the Land, Center for Fine Art Photography; Massachusetts Cultural Council Finalist; Critical Mass Top 200, 2019; the FENCE, New England; Legacy Award, Griffin Museum of Photography; two Puffin Foundation Grants; artist residencies: Museum of Northern Arizona, Joshua Tree Highlands Residency, Shoshone Artist Residency; solo exhibitions: Florida Museum of Photography, Griffin Museum of Photography – Stoneham, Hess Gallery, Texas Women’s University, and Philadelphia Print Center. 

Jason Lindsey | Cracks in the Ice

Jason Lindsey is a Midwest-based photographer and filmmaker working to interpret science and the human impacts and relationship to the natural world. Lindsey considers himself a poetic activist using his art to drive social change.

Lindsey received his BA in Fine Art from Illinois State University. Lindsey has a 20-year career in advertising and editorial photography with a continued focus on Fine Art Photography. Photo assignments have taken him from the jungles of the Amazon, the Glaciers of Iceland, the Wilds of Alaska, and the waters of Belize. Lindsey is currently the Artist in Residence at Prairie Rivers Network and has photographs in a United Nations Climate Change and The Climate Museum exhibit in New York City and another United Nations exhibit in Paris.

He has been featured in PDN, Communication Arts, and Archive Magazine and was named one of the top 200 Advertising Photographers Worldwide in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Lindsey’s book “Windy City Wild: Chicago’s Natural Wonders” was published by Chicago Review Press.

Amber Crabbe | I Dreamed We Could Stand Still

Exploration of the natural world and my desire to document its dynamism drives my photographic practice and draws me to volcanic and geothermal areas. There I can celebrate places of resilience that continue to reject human manipulation, in spite of the dramatic changes currently being imposed on our climate. Although it’s possible to build a boardwalk across a steaming hot spring or construct a roadway that facilitates access to an active volcanic area, the elements in these places refuse to be constrained. Their stubbornness soothes me and represents small victories in the face of massive global change. My moving photographs exemplify how I escape into these otherworldly places and bear witness to their ultimately unknowable power and beauty.

Amber Crabbe holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and received a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2018 she was awarded a position in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Fellows Program and in 2012 she received the Jack and Gertrude Murphy Contemporary Art Award.  She has participated in numerous curated and juried exhibitions at venues throughout the U.S., including the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, the Berkeley Art Center, SF Camerawork, SomArts, the Pacific Film Archive, Gallery Route One, Rayko Photo Center, the Smith Anderson North Gallery, the Gray Loft Gallery, and the Whatcom Museum. She lives and works in San Francisco, California.

The Griffin Museum is thrilled to partner with Maine Media Workshops to present the 2023 Arnold Newman Prize winner Craig Easton, and finalists Dylan Hausthor, Takako Kido and Nziyah Oyo. The Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture is a $20,000 prize awarded annually to a photographer whose work demonstrates a compelling new vision in photographic portraiture. The Prize is generously funded by the Arnold & Augusta Newman Foundation and proudly administered by Maine Media Workshops + College.

The Griffin highlights and celebrates the winner and finalists of the Newman Prize with an exhibition at the museum in Winchester. The finalists are also part of an online exhibition on the Griffin’s website. You can see all the finalists here.

Thank you to the jurors of this years prize – Sarah Leen, Caleb Cain Marcus & 2022 winner Lisa Elmaleh.

Winner – Arnold Newman Prize

Craig Easton – Bank Top

Craig Easton’s work is deeply rooted in the documentary tradition. He shoots long-term documentary projects exploring issues around social policy, identity, culture and community. Known for his intimate portraits and expansive landscape, his work regularly combines these elements with reportage approaches to storytelling, often working collaboratively with others to incorporate words, pictures and audio in a research-based practice that weaves a narrative between contemporary experience and history.

In 2021, Easton was awarded the prestigious title of Photographer of the Year at the SONY World Photography Awards and in 2022 was recognised with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.

He has published three monographs – Thatcher’s Children, GOST Books, 2023; Bank Top, GOST Books, 2022 and Fisherwomen, Ten O’Clock Books, 2020.

A passionate believer in working collaboratively with others, Easton conceived and led the critically acclaimed SIXTEEN project with sixteen leading photographers exploring the hopes, ambitions and fears of sixteen-year-olds all around the UK. This Arts Council funded project was exhibited in over 20 exhibitions throughout 2019/2020 culminating in three simultaneous shows in London.

Easton is a regular visiting lecturer at universities and runs workshops both in the UK and internationally.

His prints are widely collected by private individuals & corporations and are held in important museum collections and archives including the FC Barcelona collection, the St. Andrews University Special Collections, Hull Maritime Museum and Salford University Art Collection.

In addition to his personal documentary and art projects, he continues to shoot for editorial & advertising clients worldwide. Advertising and commercial clients include: The National Health Service, Visit Britain, Land Rover, Heathrow Airport, Wagamama, Mazda, John Lewis etc.

Finalists

Dylan Hausthor – “What the Rain Might Bring”

Dylan Hausthor is an artist based on the coast of Maine. They received their BFA from Maine College of Art and MFA from Yale School of Art. They were a 2019 recipient of a Nancy Graves fellowship for visual artists, runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize, nominated for Prix Pictet 2021, a W. Eugene Smith Grant finalist, 2021 Hariban Award Honorable Mention, 2021 Penumbra Foundation resident, 2023 Light Work resident, and the winner of Burn Magazine’s Emerging Photographer’s Fund. Their work has been shown nationally and internationally, and they have three books in the permanent collection at MoMA. They are currently a 2022-2023 Lunder Fellow at Colby College. They work teaching ghost hunting, ritual, photography, and mushroom foraging. To write this biography, Dylan contacted a forensic medium, who suggested that they “seemed like someone who was passionate in the things they believed in and who hides messages in what they have to say”.

Takako Kido – “Skinship”

Born in Kochi, Japan in 1970. She received a B.A. in Economics from Soka University in Tokyo in 1993. After graduating from the International Center of Photography’s full-time General Studies program in 2003, she remained in New York working as a black and white printer and retoucher while also exhibiting and publishing her own work. She returned to Japan in 2008 and currently lives in Kochi Prefecture. She presents her work in solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and internationally. Kido has published a photography book, “The Unseen” in 2021.

Nzingah Oyo – “Of 30 Siblings”

Nzingah Oyo is an American-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist, photographer, and curator. For over two decades, she has created images that celebrate and examine cultural tensions/blends of Islam, American and African cultures. She received an MFA in Photography from Temple University and a BFA from SUNY Purchase. She has taught photography at Temple University and held the role of Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. She is a Fulbright scholar and a recipient of the Light Work Artist in Residence program. Oyo has received several Brooklyn Arts Council grants, the Lilly Auchincloss Foundation Award of Excellence in Photography, The Urban Arts Initiative grant in Photography, and awarded a New York Foundation of Arts grant in Photography. She was recently selected for the New York Times Photo Review 2023. Her work has been exhibited in both solo and group shows internationally and nationally. Oyo is currently a freelance photographer, adjunct faculty at The School of Visual Arts, and teaching artist for the Brooklyn Arts Council.