Griffin Main Gallery

What makes a family? How do we define community? These fundamental questions are explored in the exhibition Nuclear Family, which re-imagines the concept of family, expanding our vision beyond traditional norms through the lens of LGBTQIA+ artists.

Traditional family values. The universal phrase for how we perceive and accept families in public. We are reminded of the standard visual narrative of a family as two heterosexual parents and their children. Family dynamics are complicated, not all of us fit into this vision of perceived perfection. In expanding the idea of family, we see these photographers present honest and authentic portrayals of themselves, their families and the broader community, challenging viewers to confront their own biases and assumptions through fresh eyes. 

Featuring a diverse range of photographic and video works, the exhibition presents a compelling exploration of diverse family structures. Jess Dugan‘s A Letter to My Daughter is a poignant video essay that delves into the joys and challenges of parenthood. Mengwen Cao‘s Liminal Space celebrates the everyday beauty, intimacy, and resilience of queer and trans people of color, with a particular focus on Asian queer identities. Yorgos Efthymiadis‘ Lighthouse Keepers offers a series of intimate portraits of friends in their own spaces, providing a glimpse into the artist’s personal connections and his shared community. Laurence Philomene‘s vibrant and colorful images serve as a visual diary reflecting their environment and their own trans and non-binary identity. Anne Vetter‘s Love is not the Last Room explores themes of gender, attachment, and family through intimate portraits of themselves and their partner. Matthew Leifheit‘s Queer Archives delves into LGBTQIA+ history through objects and archives that remind the community of its origins and those who came before.

These artists utilize photography and video not only to document their lives but also to challenge societal norms and celebrate the diversity of love and family structures. By reclaiming the genre of portraiture, often used to uphold traditional ideals, they create powerful and moving works that resonate with viewers on a deeply personal level.

Nuclear Family was conceived and created by curator and artist Katalina Simon, in collaboration with Crista Dix, Executive Director of the Griffin Museum, and exhibition designer Yana Nosenko.

More about the artists of Nuclear Family –

Mengwen Cao | Liminal Space

“Liminal Space” is a visual meditation on the everyday beauty, intimacy, and resilience of queer and trans people of color, with a focus on Asian queer identities. Through a tender gaze, these images capture moments of becoming and summon futures rooted in joy, connection, and care.

The project began as a way to connect with my community and evolved into an exploration of belonging, healing, and self-love. Each portrait embodies a collaborative process, inviting people to imagine themselves in a way that feels safe, authentic, and expansive. These moments of introspection become portals: spaces where individual transformation and collective belonging can thrive.

In a world that often amplifies extremes, “Liminal Space” aims to normalize queer existence beyond spectacle or struggle. By sharing these tender moments, I hope to offer a counter-narrative—one that embraces the multiplicity of our identities while celebrating the beauty of the in-between.

About Mengwen Cao

MENGWEN CAO (they/them) is an artist, educator and somatic coach creating multimedia portals for personal and collective transformation. Born and raised in Hangzhou, China, they are currently nomadic with roots in New York and Chiang Mai. Weaving their embodied experience as a Chinese diasporic queer into their spiritual and creative practices, they use care and tenderness to explore in-between spaces. They see photography as a vehicle for healing and a tool to visualize the future.

Jess T. Dugan | Letter to my Daughter

Letter to My Daughter is an autobiographical video directed to my five-year-old daughter, Elinor, that centers around my experience with parenthood throughout the first five years of her life. The audio soundtrack is my voice reading a letter to Elinor, and the images are from my personal archive and include snapshots, ultrasound images, and photographs from Family Pictures.The letter is highly personal and addresses a variety of topics, including my expectations around parenthood, the long and circuitous journey of trying to have a child with both known and anonymous sperm donors, the experiences of miscarriage and loss, and my adjustment to parenthood as a queer and nonbinary person. Perhaps most importantly, it tries to put into words the intensity of love between a parent and child as well as the significant personal growth parenthood both inspires and requires.Letter to My Daughter is part of my larger exploration of family. It is in dialogue with my 2017 video,Letter to My Father, which explores my estranged relationship with my father, as well as my long-term series of photographs Family Pictures(2012-present),which focuses on the intimacy of familial relationships, aging, and the passage of time through an extended look at three generations of my family.

About Jess T. Dugan

Jess T. Dugan (b. 1986, Biloxi, MS) is an artist and writer whose work explores the complexities of personhood, relationships, desire, love, and family. While their practice is centered around photography, it also includes writing, video, sound, drawing, and installation. Their work is informed by their own life experiences, including their identity as a queer and nonbinary person, and reflects a deep belief in the importance of representation and the transformative power of storytelling.  

Their work is regularly exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of over 60 museums. Their monographs include Look at me like you love me (MACK, 2022), To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and Every Breath We Drew (Daylight Books, 2015). They are the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an ICP Infinity Award, and were selected by the Obama White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change. 

They currently live and work in St. Louis, MO.

Yorgos Efthymiadis | The Lighthouse Keepers

Whenever I travel back to my country, it feels like I come across a shoebox in the back of my childhood bedroom closet, full of memorabilia I didn’t know were there. As soon as I open the box, an inner whisper says “I will remind you of everything.”

There is an instant rush of fond memories of the house I grew up in by the sea and of the maze-like city I moved to when I got older. But mostly, of family and friends: the people that I care for and who have always been there for me since the beginning. The ones I take for granted.

Growing up, so many of us were queer in our seaside town we joked “it must be in the water.” Some have left, many have stayed. Like everyone else, from the proud “mother” of the village who helped most of us come out, to the sentimental ones that are still hanging onto a past that is no longer there, we are struggling in our own way. Loneliness, isolation, decline. Secrets and regrets. But each one a lighthouse keeper. Strong and resilient, fragile and tender, always there to help, guiding each other through life, and reminding me of where I belong.

About Yorgos Efthymiadis

Yorgos Efthymiadis is an artist/curator from Greece who resides in Somerville, MA. A board member of Somerville Arts Council and founder of The Curated Fridge, an independent gallery that celebrates fine art photography, Efthymiadis was 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.

Matthew Leifheit | Queer Archives

Since 2021 Matthew Leifheit has traveled the country visiting and photographing in queer archives. Leifheit describes: “During the 1970s and 80s, independent archives were established by LGBTQ Americans to collect materials that major institutions would not. These materials—pictures, letters, T shirts, protest signs, ephemera, and the like—document queer culture and identity in the 20th century, in relation to the rise of the US gay rights movement. More importantly, they contain the evidence of many peoples’ lives who would otherwise be lost to history, for reasons ranging from homophobia to racial prejudice, sexism and AIDS.”

Leifheit’s Queer Archive asks us to consider what is worth keeping, how histories are made and told, who gets to hold them, and who is able to seek out and find them.
These photographs dramatize the limits of immortality as we attempt to access it through media.

Text by Rachel Stern, Curator, MassArt Museum exhibition, 2024

About Matthew Leifheit

Matthew Leifheit is an American photographer, magazine editor, and professor based in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and the Yale School of Art, Leifheit is Editor-in-Chief of MATTE Magazine, the journal of emerging photography he has published since 2010. Leifheit’s photographs have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Aperture, TIME, and Artforum, and have been exhibited internationally. His work has been supported by residencies at the Corporation of Yaddo and The Watermill Center, receiving grants from the New York State Cultural Council and the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale, where he was awarded the Richard Benson Prize in 2017. He is currently full-time faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.

Laurence Philomene |

In recent years, I have challenged myself to take daily pictures to document my evolving sense of self as a non-binary person undertaking hormonal replacement therapy. The resulting photos look at transition beyond the physical, into the intimate and domestic aspects of life viewers are rarely granted access to. Individually, each photo tells the story of a small moment, but when juxtaposed with one another, context is gained and a new, more powerful narrative is created : one of creating a home both within my environment and my body.

Growing up, the only access I had to queer history was through photography books I borrowed at the library. In lieu of institutional recognition, a lot of our history as marginalized folks is passed down through self-documentation as a means of reclaiming our narrative, which is something that’s always been fascinating to me. I think of the freedom to create our own story as an integral part of embodying queerness.

About Laurence Philomene

Laurence Philomene is a non-binary artist from Montreal (b.1993) who creates colourful photographs informed by their lived experiences as a chronically ill transgender person. Their practice celebrates trans existence, and studies identity as a space in constant flux via highly-saturated, cinematic, and vulnerable images.

Laurence’s first monograph Puberty – in which the artist self-documents two years of their life as they undergo hormonal replacement therapy – was published in 2022 by Yoffy Press.

Anne Vetter | love is not the last room

Vetter’s series “Love is Not the Last Room” is made in collaboration with the artist’s family—their parents, their brothers, and their partner. It is an examination of play and leisure, tension and freedom. Through photographs, Vetter processes how they learned to relate in their most intimate connections, and how they relate now. This project explores queer familial relationships, and uses Vetter’s own gender fluidity as a lens to examine the gendered experiences of their family members.

About Anne Vetter

Anne Vetter (b. 1994) lives and works in California and Massachusetts. They are currently a MFA candidate at UCLA (2026). They are a Jewish-American artist. Their work is focused on play, permission, desire and performance. 

The Griffin Museum is excited to showcase the collection of artist and collector, Frazier King. Known to emerging, mid career and established artists of the medium, Frazier has spent a lifetime supporting, collecting and collaborating with photographers celebrating the craft and artistry of photography.

The collection of Frazier King is a reflection of his interactions with his fellow contemporary photographers over the last 20 years, King has collected black and white as well as color prints focusing on the constructed photograph. This collection provides a unique record of the various ways of constructing an image, and the evolution of this genre over the last decades.  The collection was originally presented by FotoFest in 2012 in an exhibition entitled The Collector’s Eye II.  Subsequently, King produced a book in conjunction with FotoFest entitled The Collector’s Eye—A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries.

King explains that he uses an intuitive process in developing both his collection and his photographic practice.  The collection springs from his personal exchanges with various photographers in the context of FotoFest Meeting Place, as well as in his role as an active member of the board of the Houston Center for Photography and his own photographic practice.  King, who worked as an energy lawyer in Houston, created several projects using constructed images and his photography has been shown worldwide and is included in a number of important museum collections.  

The collection is grouped according to the methods of construction and, as a collector, gives his interpretation of each one of them. His collection includes prints by Roberto Fernández Ibáñez, Jerry Uelsmann, Diane Ducruet and others, who constructed their photographs in the printing process. The largest portion of the constructed photographs in King’s collection consists of prints resulting from a construction in front of the camera – Elaine Duigenan, Pavel Baňka, John Chervinsky, and Susan Dunkerley Maguire are just a few, who bring inanimate objects to life, play with scale, use scanners rather than a camera and use unusual materials to physically construct a representation of a particular object or series of objects.

About Frazier King

Frazier King is a photographer, collector and curator, living and working in Houston, TX.  His photography work focuses on constructed still life and some bodies are produced using film and gelatin silver prints while others are produced using digital capture and archival pigment prints.  “The Seven Deadly Sins” series is his most recent work, produced in 2022.  Over the last 25 years he has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France, and Belgium.  His work is included in the collections of many individuals and 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.  His collection was shown by FotoFest in 2012 in “The Collector’s Eye II” exhibition.  Subsequently, he produced in conjunction with FotoFest and Schilt Publishing a book entitled “The Collector’s Eye—A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries,” showing his collection and featuring essays by Wendy Watriss, co-founder of FotoFest, Madeline Yale Preston, former Executive Director of the Houston Center of Photography and now independent curator, and himself, addressing the nature of the collection and its acquisition.  The book is entitled “The Collector’s Eye—A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries.”  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.  

In the darkness of winter, we search for the light. Our Winter Solstice Members Exhibition brings together our community, lighting up the museum with images, ideas, and boundless creativity, celebrating the works of our photo community in all of its splendor.

This annual celebration highlights the medium of photography in all of its forms. We love sharing your vision with the world, and look forward to our annual gathering of images, ideas and vision.

This exhibition is also an online showcase, with multiple pages. Take a look at all of the talented artists and images that will fill the walls of the museum in December.

Edition 1 (this page) | Edition 2 | Edition 3 | Edition 4

This year’s Annual Winter Solstice Members Exhibition will be held in the main gallery from December 13, 2024 — January 12, 2025.

Participating Artists (Listed Alphabetically by First Name):
Adele Quartley Brown, Adrien Bisson, Alan Richards, Alexandra Frangiosa, Alison Lake, Allyson Ely, Amanda Heck, Anastasia Sierra, Angela Rowlings, Ania Moussawel, Ann Boese, Anna Litvak-Hinenzon, Audrey Gottlieb, Austin Bryant, Becky Behar, Beth Luchner, Betty Stone, Bill Clark, Bonnie Newman, Bremner Benedict, Brynne Quinlan, Caren Winnall, Cassandra Goldwater, Catherine Panebianco, Cathy Cone, Charles Maniaci, Charlotte Toumanoff, Chen Gao, Cheryl Clegg, Christopher Weikart, Connor Archambault, Corinne Adams, Cyd Peroni, Cynthia Smith, Dafna Steinberg, Dale Niles, David Donnelly, David Rabkin, Dawn Watson, Diana Cheren Nygren, Diana Nicholette Jeon, Diane Hemingway, Diana Noh, Donna Dangott, Donna Gordon, Donna Tramontozzi, Douglas Lutz, Duygu Aytaç, Edie Clifford, Elizabeth Corcoran-Hunt, Elizabeth Hopkins, Elizabeth Wiese, Ellen Feldman, Eric Luden, Erik Gehring, Erin Menatian, Fruma Markowitz, Gail Fischer, Gary Beeber, George Imirzian, Grant Halsey, Heather Pillar, Holly Worthington, Hope Schreiber, Jack Doerner, Jaimie Ladysh, Jaina Cipriano, James Collins, Jamie Hankin, Janice Koskey, Jane Waggoner Deschner, Janet Smith, Janis Hersh, Jeanette Pivor, Jeanne Carey, Jeff Larason, Jessica Cardelucci, Jeffrey Mark Dunn, Jen Bilodeau, Jennifer Erbe, Jessica Burko, Jesus Rios Cozzetto, Joan Kocak, Joe Greene, John Brenton, Jonathan Sachs, Jose Ney Mila Espinosa, Joseph S. Lieber, Joy Bush, Judi Iranyi, ​​Judith Montminy, Julia Arstop, Julia Buteux, Julia Cluett, Julianne Snow Gauron, Julie Broderick, Karen Elizabeth Baker, Karen Hosking, Karen Matthews, Karin Rosenthal, Kay Mathew, Kaya Sanan, Kelly Conlin, Ken Rothman, Kermit Lehman, Kevin Belanger, Khim Mata Hipol, Kiyomi Yatsuhashi, Larry Smukler, Laura Ferraguto, Law Hamilton, Lauren J Piper, Lawrence W. Osgood, Leann Shamash, Leanne Trivett S., Lee Cott, Lee Rogers, Lidia Russell,  Liliana Caruana, Linda Hammett Ory, Linda Haas, Linda Plaisted, Lisa Liberetto, Lisa McCarty, Lisa Paulette Silberman, Lisa R. Reisman, Lisa Redburn, Lisa Spencer, Lisa Tang Liu with J. David Tabor — Alchemy of the Unknowns) Laurie Peek, Lucia Ravens, Lynn Saville, Lynne Breitfeller, Marcy Juran, Meg Birnbaum, Marcie Alkema, Marky Kauffmann, Margaret Rizzuto, Mari Saxon, Marilyn Canning, Marjorie Gillette  Wolfe, Mark Eshbaugh, Mark Levinson, Martha Volcker, Martha Wakefield, Mary Pat Reeve, Mary Presson Roberts, Matthew Herrmann, Maura Conron, Megan Riley, Michael Brown, Michael Burka, Michael Lynch, Michael Stepansky, Nadira Gupta, Natalie McGuire, Naomi Soto, Neelakantan Sunder, Nicholas T. Jones (TEEJ), Nikita Mash, Nina Menconi, Pamela Pecchio, Parrish Dobson, Pat Corlin, Patricia Scialo, Peter J Baumgartner, Tony Loreti, Pip Shepley, Rachel Portesi, Ralph Mercer, Rebecca Skinner, Ricardo Pontes, Robert Morin, Bob Reasenberg, Robin Radin, Robin Z. Boger, Rohina Hoffman, Ronald D. Butler, R. Lee Post, Ryck Lent, Sally Ann Field, Sally Bousquet, Sally Chapman, Sally J. Naish, Sandra Pike, Sandra Chen Weinstein, Sandy Hill, Sara Silks, Sarah Christianson, Sarah Hughes, Sasha Fino, Scott Ludwig, Sean Sullivan, Shaheen Lakhani, Shara Hall, Sharon Schindler, Sheila Bodine, Sheri Lynn Behr, Síle Marrinan, Simone Brogini, Stefanie Klavens, Stephen Schmidt, Steve Dunwell, Steve Genatossio, Steve Jacobson, Steve Levin, Sue Anne Hodges, Suki Hanfling, Susan Collins, Susan Lapides, Susan Lirakis, Sue Michlovitz, Susan Moffat, Susan Rosenberg Jones, Suzanne Reasenberg, Suzanne Theodora White, Suzanne Williamson, Teresa Camozzi, Teri Figliuzzi, Terri Unger, Terry Rochford, Thomas E. Janzen, Thomas McCarty, Vicky Stromee, Wenda Habenicht, William Betcher, William P Feiring, William Steinfeld, William Zinn, Yat Chun Chan (Marco Yat Chun Chan), Yorgos Efthymiadis, Zoe Perry-Wood

With great power comes great responsibility.

The power of visual images and the unregulated dynamic of AI have created a world untethered from reality. Disinformation and misinformation in this election year is at an all time high. The ability to think critically is challenged. The general public being swayed or falling into rabbit holes or the digital abyss is not only possible but probable. Artificial intelligence, taking data sets to perform complex tasks to mimic human behavior including the various virtual assistants like ChatGPT or Gemini, or art generators Mid-Journey, Dall-E all scrape data in a large feast, learning, growing, expanding. The programs complex computations become better at anticipating behaviors and inevitably rewrite our history based on the information exchange. 

This exhibition, focused on Artificial Intelligence, includes five artists all looking at the complexities of the visual image as truth, fiction, muse and outlier. All use technology to inform their work, stretch their truth, follow myths and legends, rewrite history and manufacture new realities.

Josh Azzarella

I create still images, video, and objects from important cultural images by altering or removing the punctual event in the image. The works explore the power of authorship in collective memory. This multidisciplinary studio practice is rooted in the scrutiny of popular historiography and the indexical document. Through various methods I seek to interrupt, displace or interfere with the images that make up our personal and shared histories. This practice of arrogation allows me to confuse, append, or create a new memory for the viewer. In this way I interrupt the stream of information and imagery that is disseminated, filtered, and collected. The works find context in our personal memory and in the larger postmodern conversation about what is real. We often note, in trying to understand our own history, that the photographs which signify the events we experience come to replace or complicate our own memories. In this way, I intend the works I produce to further alter those collective memories. Moreover, the works often seek a meditative or still moment during which the viewer can stand transfixed. This contemplative moment is an opportunity to introduce the larger context in which we collect and chronicle our communal history. — Josh Azzarella

Rashed Haq — Plausible Presidents

“Plausible Presidents” explores the complex interplay between perception, imagery, and history, underscored by the pervasive contemporary issue of disinformation in our digital era. This project presents a series of digitally crafted photographs of the first sixteen US Presidents, covering a time period from before the invention of photography until photography was fairly prevalent. The portraits, while visually plausible, are intellectually known as fabrications, challenging viewers to confront their immediate acceptance of photographic information as factual — sometimes allowing critical thinking to be overlooked in the face of compelling imagery

Each photographic portrait is crafted using generative AI, drawing from historical textual descriptions,
paintings, sculptures, and where available, photographs, to resonate with the persona and epoch of the respective presidents. Generative AI is adept at creating images with perceptual realism using multimodal input of text and images. This process, blending historical accuracy with artistic interpretation, aims to materialize the unseen and question the seen. The text descriptions are also created with generative AI, with its potential for bias and inaccuracy in the captions.

In an age where digital manipulation is seamless and widespread, “Plausible Presidents” serves as a mirror reflecting our vulnerabilities in discerning truth from fabrication, including mine. It reminds us how easily our perception can be swayed by images with perceptual realism, and a call to critically evaluate the authenticity and implications of the visuals we encounter.

Hayley Lohn — Capital Gains

Hayley Lohn was born in Vancouver, Canada. She is an artist, photographer, and videographer currently based in Vancouver. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Western Ontario and graduated from the International Center of Photography’s Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism program in 2021. Her work explores topics related to technology, nature, and psychology.

Orejarena & Stein — American Glitch

American Glitch examines the slip between fact and fiction and its manifestation in the physical landscape of the United States, the duo’s adopted home. Orejarena & Stein lead us to examine that amidst an overwhelming sea of unending information available in an instant, society is left asking what is real and what’s fake. What can the world trust, and what is a ‘glitch’?

To Orejarena & Stein, screen dominance, conspiracy theories, fake news, and the advent of the Metaverse call to question our reality and our potential existence in a ‘simulation,’ a term employed as a satirical collective protest against late-stage capitalism and an increased dependence on technology. To exist in an online community is to bear witness to the ‘simulation’, where images are posted as personal evidence of spotting a ‘glitch in our reality.’ A concept initially explored in films such as ‘The Matrix’ and ‘The Truman Show,’ a ‘glitch’ reflects a generation’s collective experience wherein the digital and physical worlds have merged; a world in which five senses seem inadequate against campaigns of conspiracy.

The artists spent years treating the internet as our collective subconscious, collating posts on social media and Reddit threads of ‘evidence of glitches in real life’. These threads and images become a place for a new form of community and connection across time and space. Orejarena & Stein then photograph sites around the US which remind them or people on the internet of real-life glitches. Such locations include California City – the blueprint of a perfect town – replete with ‘paper roads,’ avenues, and cul-desacs, which were never completed; or a staged Iraqi village at Fort Irwin, the U.S. Army base in the Mojave Desert.

About the Artists
Orejarena & Stein (b. Colombia, 1994 & UK, 1994) are a multimedia artist duo based in New York. Their work examines the intersection of technology, memory, and the duo’s desire to explore American mythologies and narratives. Fascinated with the emergent properties inherent to photographing as a pair using only a single camera, their practice explores collaboration in an individualistic medium. Orejarena & Stein conduct extensive research into collective image production within a world saturated by visual images. Their work has been exhibited internationally and can be found within public and private collections.

Phillip Toledano — Another America

Another America is an invented history of New York City from 1940-1950, with accompanying short stories by New Yorker writer John Kenney.

Truth in America has been slowly dying over the last decade. The country is consumed with conspiracy theories. For millions, facts are a choice. For millions, history is a choice. The arrival of AI is the next stage in the demise of truth. We can recreate the world as it never was. For every conspiracy theory, there can be visual proof. Convincing evidence that makes the lie real.

Another America takes this idea and creates a history that never existed. A world complete with people, events, and disasters, couched in the veracity of the past. Did this really happen? Is this real history? The images are simultaneously familiar and strange, much like the world in which we live.

We are pleased to present the portfolios of the Photography Atelier 38 creative artists.

Photography Atelier is a portfolio and project-building course for emerging to advanced photographers taught by Emily Belz and Jennifer McClure

Participants engage in supportive critical discussions of each other’s work and leave with a better understanding of the industry and the ability to edit and sequence their own work.

Instruction in the Atelier includes visual presentations based around an assignment which is designed to encourage experimentation in both subject matter and approach. Students learn the basics of how to approach industry professionals to show their work and how to prepare for a national or regional portfolio review. There is discussion of marketing materials, do-it-yourself websites, DIY book publishing and the importance of social media. Students learn the critical art of writing an artist’s statement and bio.

The students here were part of our year long portfolio development program from Fall of 2023 to Spring 2024 and we are thrilled to see their work in the main gallery at Winchester.

Students of Jennifer McClure 

Donna Delone | Kym Ghee | Kay McCabe | Corinne Cobabe | Victor Rosansky | Becca Screnock | Li Shen | Carrie Usmar | Janice Weichman | Laura Wolf |

Students of Emily Belz

Ann Boese | Michael Burka | Julia Cluett | CoCo McCabe | Linda Hammett Ory | Lisa Redburn | Hope Schreiber | Betty Stone | Pip Shepley | Martha Volcker |

We are pleased to showcase the artistry of our community in the 30th Annual Members Juried Exhibition. This exhibition showcases the wide diversity of our creative community in style, craft and vision. Juried by Mazie Harris, Assistant Curator of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, sixty-one photographs chosen from over 1,300 submitted images were selected to be exhibited in this show.

Join us in Saturday June 22nd at 6pm Eastern in Winchester for a celebration of the artists showcased in this exhibition.

An exhibition catalog of images from our in person exhibition, and our online showcase is available here.

Arthur Griffin Legacy Award: Barbara Peacock, “Cai and Claire”

Griffin Prize: Elizabeth Stone, “Negative / Positive NS44”

Directors Prize: Alina Saranti

Exhibition Award: Francisco Gonzalez Camacho

Honorable Mentions: Jennifer Bilodeau, “Perspective”, Sally Chapman, “Wave”, Francisco Gonzalez Camacho, “Diced”, Susan Moldenhauer, “Implosion, June 23, 2023”, Lisa Tyson Ennis, “Dontavius Williams, Public Historian“

Artists featured here:

Paul Adams, Mariette Allen, Robert David Atkinson, Mark Bargen, Donna Bassin, William Betcher, Jennifer Bilodeau, Philip Borden, Ronald Butler, Teresa Camozzi, Sally Chapman, Jo Ann Chaus, Fehmida Chipty, James Collins, Maura Conron, Seth Cook, Roy Crystal, Sharon Draghi, Amy Durocher, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Carol Eisenberg, Andrew Epstein, Laura Ferraguto, Teri Figliuzzi, Monique Fischer, Fran Forman, Andrew Foster, Suzanne Gainer, Hank Gans, Francisco Gonzalez Camacho, Amy Heller, Douglas Hill, Eric Kunsman, Margaret Lampert, Patricia Mcelroy, Susan Moldenhauer, Amy Montali, Hunter O’Hanian, Jane Paradise, Barbara Peacock, Linda Plaisted, Allison Plass, Robin Radin, Mary Reeve, Katherine Richmond, Karin Rosenthal, Angela Rowlings, Mari Saxon, Alina Saranti, Carla Shapiro, Anastasia Sierra, Frank Siteman, Elizabeth Stone, Lisa Tyson Ennis, Terri Unger, Carrie Usmar, Larry Volk, Babs Wheelden, Joan Wolcott, Holly Worthington and Andrew Zou.

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.