Shows Archive

Laila Nahar | Artistry & Vision in Handmade Photobooks

Posted on July 8, 2025

In celebration of her participation as a Guest Critic for our inaugural Handmade Book exhibition (curated by Sangyon Joo from Datz Press), the Griffin Museum of Photography is pleased to present an online exhibition by Laila Nahar. The show centers on three of her projects: Rituals — a set of two books, Face to Faith and Puja — and Lost Space Living In Our Mind. With their complex book structures, vibrant imagery and print manipulation, these visual and tactile feasts take us on a meditative journey through memory, time, and place.

We are thankful to Nahar for deliberately spending time with each book of our Handmade Photobook exhibit, and selecting six of them for a spotlight feature on the Fine Art Photography Journal, LENSCRATCH.

Lost Space Living In Our Minds
Jaya Mishra, Tanveer Khonker & Laila Nahar

Lost Space Living in Our Mind is a handmade artist monograph about living in a place and the experience while revealing the place as both a subject and a collaborator. The book emerged when the novelty, particularity and excitement faded away. It was born from the feelings that seeped in the depths of our soul, into our existence. When acceptance and contradictions of the moment lost its grip on us. It is the sudden deep breath that pauses everything and the moment spreads through our existence. Just the hopping of a little bird, the sudden darkening of the sky in anticipation of monsoon rain, or the woman on the roof taking a moment of pause to look at the sky after hanging the washed clothes. Suddenly we are freed from the moment; something rises like the swelling tide. It is a book when feelings and remembrance become the reflection of each other.

The book starts with the collage from cut-out photos with pastels and text. Delving into scattered memories and realizations, we forged a nonlinear storyline of places embarking on a slow journey. The exploration pushed our inner and outer boundaries, confronting vulnerabilities. It spans across multiple spaces having been interconnected through memories or absence of it. One memory has led to the recollection of another from an entirely different time and place. The places have all bled into a single collage made of vivid yet intangible moments. Perhaps, it is not about a specific place at all, but more about the idea of the place itself. The new context of the experience is created with writings by three protagonists.

Rituals: Face to Faith and Puja
Tanveer Khondker & Laila Nahar

Face to Faith

When religion is reduced to an individual, when the religious rituals and categorizations are taken away; what remains in the heart of a pilgrim? What remains between a man* and the god? Is it still of significance what the man* is called or the God is named? The book attempts to understand and capture the sublime calmness and depth in the connection of a soul to the oneness.

I was trying to grasp and capture what is there in the shades of faith in the pilgrims of the old city of Jerusalem. To me, I see familiar expression on every pilgrim’s face – on the western wall, inside the Dome of Rock and the Church of Holy Sepulchre. It was of deep faith, vulnerability of human existence and, lamenting the loss of ancient cause. The old city has three of the world’s most important religious sites. Just behind the Wailing Wall which is considered the holiest for Jews, I could see the glittering Dome of the Rock, which houses the rock from where Muslims believe the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. And only minutes away is the pilgrim-thronged Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows), which follows the Stations of the Cross to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the site where Jesus is believed to have been crucified.

By end of day, to me, all faces in the sacred sites of Christianity, Jewish and Islam became one – every pilgrim in the congregations or prayers was same to me. It is painful to conceive, for centuries, religions fight over the narratives of Jerusalem and the custody of its stones.

The outside of the book stands as a wall depicting the walled city of Jerusalem while the inside of the accordion shows the pilgrims devoted into rituals from three religion.

*The origin of the word man is gender neutral

Rituals: Face to Faith and Puja

The ritual of puja is founded in religion, but it is far more expansive in the lives of Hindu culture. It runs deep through personal, family and social life. It is the rituals of love, blessings, togetherness and health; the search for enlightenment and depth; seeking meaning to life and death. It is joyous, it is humbling and it is liberating from personal constraints. It is submission to connections to within and to without.

The rituals of puja are means to comprehend and appreciate our spiritual self and the connection to oneness. It is to understand that the pride and individuality is an illusion. It is not that homage is paid to multiple gods but it is to view and experience the oneness through multiple windows.

It is like the soothing translucent aachal of her saree that wraps as all in her warmth.

About the artist –

Laila Nahar is a lens-based artist and bookmaker in California, USA. She lived her life in stark cultural contrast, born and brought up in Bangladesh and eventually migrating to the USA. She is primarily a self-taught photographer and book-artist exploring belonging, memory, cultural and collective identity. Her background from Bangladesh continues to shape her artistic identity and her work goes back to her roots in the Indian subcontinent, namely Bangladesh and India.

Laila’s handmade photo artist booksappeared in several exhibitions, including Griffin Museum of Photography, Photobookjournal.com, UnBound13! Candela Books + Gallery Exhibit and has won several awards, including Lucie Photo Book Prize Independent Category, DUMMY AWARD24 Shortlist, Athens Photo Festival APhF:24 Finalist, 19^th Singapore International Photo Festival Finalist etc. Her books are in permanent collections of several libraries and museums, including University of Colorado Libraries (Boulder), The Fleet Library (RISD), Boatwright Memorial Library (University of Richmond, Virginia), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Harvey Milk Photo Book Center amongst others.

Laila attended CODEX 2024 with seven of her handmade artist photo books.

31st Annual Online Members Exhibition

Posted on June 20, 2025

Each year we celebrate our members creativity with our annual members juried exhibition. This year we had an overwhelming amount of exceptional entries, making our decisions difficult to narrow to a select few.

This year, in addition to the 68 member artists on the walls of the museum in Winchester, we are pleased to present an online exhibition highlighting 64 more member artists. Of the over 300 members who submitted photographs, between the in person and online exhibitions we highlight 136 members creativity.

The artists included in our online exhibition are –

Golnaz Abdoli, Barry Berman, Jean M. Bernstein, John Blom, Robin Boger, Christine Breslin, Teresa Camozzi, Jeanne Carey, Jesse Carter, Tom Cawthon, Jaina Cipriano, Bill Clark, Claudia Rippee, Kelly Conlin, Lee Cott, Ashley Craig, Lee Day, Carol Eisenberg, Lawrence Elbroch, Andrew Epstein, Jose Mila Espinoza, Anne Evans, Teri Figliuzzi, Joan Fitzsimmons, Trish Gannon, Lisa Gizara, Adam Gooder, Katherine Gulla, Wenda Habenicht, Al Hiltz, Jeannie Hutchins, Steve Jacobson, Gail Jenner, Cami Johnson, Amisha Kashyap, Kay Kenny, Sasha Knittel, Molly Lamb, Emily Laux, Al Levin, Mark Levinson, Steve Lewent, Anna Litvak-Hinenzon, Lyn Swett-Miller, Benita Mayo, Kay McCabe, Lisa McCord, Lisa Miller, Donna Marie Mironchuk, Laila Nahar, Jose Mila-Espinoza, Linda Hammett Ory, Linda Plaisted, Abby Raeder, Lisa Redburn, Sepand Rezazadeh, Kaya Sanan, Jessica Sarrazin, Lynn Saville, Anastasia Shik, Walter Silver, Ron St. Jean, JP Terlizzi, Robert Tomlinson, Elizabeth Wiese, Marsha Wilcox and Marjorie Wolfe

Atelier 2.2025 Online Exhibition

Posted on June 16, 2025

We are pleased to present the work of our inaugural class of Atelier 2 students. Instructor Traer Scott led the class through a year of portfolio development, critique and conversations with professional mentors, book designers, gallerists and editors.

We present the work of Tony Attardo, Judith Donath, Dena Eber, Tira Khan, Kay McCabe, Victor Rosansky, Gordon Saperia, and Li Shen.

Dena Eber: Echoes From the Land

When I moved onto new property in May of 2023, I encountered native ancient energy that at times reflected war and greed but also revealed spirituality and love. The only other time I experienced this was in Israel, the land of my heritage. When I started this artwork, I sought to learn from the energies encrusted in the land; where I live as an inhabitant, my country as an American, and Israel as a Jew. My larger project has each of these places as a part (where I live, my country, Israel), plus an epilogue with reflections for peace. Included are samples from each part.

As the events in southern Israel and Gaza on October 7^th, 2023 unfolded, my work took on new meaning, and I searched for parallels in time, at least 2000 to 3000 years in each place, to better understand human energy, behaviors, and their belief in God. I began to think about my place in time, reflecting on whose land it is anyway. Even though I hold the deed to the land where I live, in my heart I know that I don’t own it. My project is about uncovering the human conflict between wanting a place to call home that expresses one’s roots, and a perceived ownership of land.

My lens reveals small truths that lie in front of me, that a greater understanding of the past embedded in the land is entwined to ultimate peace. Each time I click the shutter, connect to the land, and converse with the spirits of the past, I am committing a political act. As in prayer, I give thanks and ask forgiveness at once.

Judith Donath: Aesthetic Selection

Aesthetic Selection is a fine art series of layered flower images, each composition designed to interpose shape and texture, creating a shifting portrait of floral form and botanical detail.

To make these images, I start by photographing living flowers outdoors in natural light. I combine the chosen photographs as full frames, selectively blending the layers using a spatial-frequency-based process.

Every spring, after the long colorless New England winter, I am entranced by the emergence of green shoots, and find the successive waves of blossoms to be photographically irresistible. This attraction is not surprising, for flowers have evolved to be enticingly beautiful. Rooted in place, plants must lure others to assist their reproductive process, to carry pollen from the stamens of one flower to the pistil of another. The beauty and variety of floral forms is the evolutionary result of the competition to attract various pollinators—insects, birds, and now humans, too—with wildly differing sensory preferences and anatomical abilities.

I am far from alone in finding flowers to be an fascinating subject for art: does the world need another picture of a rose or tulip? Yet this familiarity can make us blind to really looking at them; we often simply recognize them, without really noticing the fantastic structure and detail of even the most common place blossom. My goal with this project is to create images that entice people to look afresh at these remarkable botanical solutions to the dual goals of pollinator attraction and sexual reproduction.

Kay McCabe: Inheritance

Inheritance is a photographic memoir that ruminates on family, culture and our relationship to the things we keep.

We all have stuff that has been given to us from our ancestors. The question is, what do you with it all? Do you use it, store it, give it away? What began as an exercise in downsizing quickly became a reflection on my family’s ethos. As I rummaged, I heard lessons from my parents and realized that each object had a story to tell. Creative, industrious and loving, my family was also bound by an oppressive social code. Some items I cherish and others are a burden to save, yet tossing them feels as if I am abandoning my past.

I have found myself in a rush of memories, some crystal clear and some murky with time. The old green chair that belonged to my father as a boy, too small and too low to be practical, still sits proudly right by the woodstove. Broken sewing machines, used by my mother to dress her five children gather dust in the closet. Her paintings, his ruby red wine glasses, my grandfather’s ornate dishes from a lost generation, wedding photos, baby photos, outdated anatomical drawings and history books- the list of things goes on and on. Each object tells a story and connects the past to the present.

My children are not going to want these heirlooms, yet purging is more difficult than I thought. Like all good memoirs, I hope this reflection resonates.

Li Shen: Into the Unknown

I believe that everyone carries an inner world—a personal, illogical gallery of subliminal life, veiled in dreams, shaped by experience, yet composed of more than memory. Most of the time, this world remains inaccessible, buried beneath waking consciousness. Perhaps it is what psychologists call the unconscious.

In my conscious mind, I sense the world teetering toward an uncertain future. Climate change, authoritarianism, and other looming crises threaten to unravel what once felt stable. My immediate response is to cling to normalcy, to suppress dread and despair. Yet, these anxieties continue to be processed beneath the surface, emerging in fleeting ways—through dreams, word associations, and slips of the tongue.

Lately, my artistic practice begins with collecting objects—not for their material value, but for their beauty, quirkiness, or quiet insistence. The images in this series are in-camera compositions of these found objects, arranged as small dioramas atop my bedroom dresser rather than assembled digitally. This hands-on approach is integral to my practice, – tactile, real-world constructions giving rise to images that depart from reality.

While I approach each arrangement with intention, often sketching ideas beforehand, the images themselves arise from a deeper place. Certain objects seem to demand inclusion, scratching at the surface of my inner world, insisting on their role within a scene. The resulting photographs feel dreamlike and irrational—fragments of the subconscious made visible. I do not doubt that they are oblique reflections of my suppressed fears, a way for my mind to process what I work so hard to ignore.

For now, my conscious gaze remains averted from the uncertainty ahead, but through these images, the unconscious speaks.

Victor Rosansky:

I create photographs that function like visual symphonies—images that don’t just capture moments but unfold like music over time. By translating rhythmic structures into visual form, I guide the viewer’s gaze much like a composer leads a listener through sound. Whether it’s the order of urban patterns or the vitality of natural chaos, rhythm shapes the emotional tone of my work. My goal is to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary; images that are not just seen but felt.

Even before I press the shutter, I find myself “listening” to a scene—tuning in to its tempo, its dynamics, its emotional tone. Whether it’s the orderly cadence of urban architecture or the unpredictable pulse of nature, each image is crafted to evoke specific emotional responses.

This cross-disciplinary perspective not only sharpens my visual intuition but also invites collaboration—where photographers and musicians can meet in shared creative space, building layered, immersive works that are full of metaphors. For me, rhythm is the connective tissue between image and feeling, sight and sound, stillness and movement—and it is through this rhythm that I find the heartbeat of my art.

Gordon Saperia: Threshold of a Dream

Threshold of a Dream is a series of nonrepresentational landscape images whose origins are deeply rooted in my desire to hold the joyful memory of a specific time and a place. These recollections are guided by imagery seen in my pre-dream state – a phenomenon referred to by scientists as “hypnagogia”. Drifting towards sleep, I often see dimly lit and vaguely familiar landscapes. These visions transform in content and in feel–sometimes quickly and sometimes more slowly. Upon awakening, I have unusually clear memories of them.

The digitally composited images in Threshold of a Dream are complex fusions of elements from my photographs of worldwide landscapes. The process involves replacing one section after another until the entire frame feels both mysterious and congruous. The final form, which can take hours of digital play, blurs the line between photography and painting.

I have walked, photographed, and dreamt in these fantastic places. My hope is that the viewer will take a moment to pause and construct their own story.

Web-based, generative artificial intelligence (AI) was not used to create these images.

Tony Attardo: A Portrait of Place

The American novelist John Steinbeck, reminds us, “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself”.¹ These words run deep, and bring me back to a very young age when the conversation at our family dinner table wasn’t about food, it was about respect; treating people with dignity and respect no matter what their station in life, what they looked like, where they came from, or where they lived. Today, at 71 years old, this powerful lesson is still the driving force of my photography.

In this body of work, I have created portraits of people’s surroundings and lives in the lesser known small rural and urban places in my home state of New Hampshire. The motivation behind this, and all my work, is to inform, inspire, and to connect cultures and lives that help start conversations about dignity and respect.

These images, a combination of digital monochrome and black and white film, focus on the interplay of light and shadow and detail. They allow the viewer to concentrate on the subjects’ expressions and environment while enhancing an emotional connection.

In each photograph, there are signs of a calm, steady human presence-each with their own character. The buildings serve as a tangible link to the past, offering us a sense of place and continuity, a story of quiet resolve – i.e. a century old granite church, the active brick factory buildings, and a small town hall on a country road. Creating black and white images help transcend time,create emotional depth, and bring people directly into the present.

All of these photographs extend the viewer an invitation into the spaces where one can easily enter and perhaps contemplate who might live here, feel their presence, and imagine their voices. Each photograph, complete with its beauty and complexity, becomes a single thread in a much larger story.

¹From a recent public exhibit, Portland Museum of Art 2023

31st Annual Members Juried Exhibition

Posted on June 1, 2025

We are thrilled to announce the artists of the 31st Annual Members Juried Exhibition.

After selecting 68 images from almost 1500, from over 300 artists submitted, we are pleased to announce the members who will be featured on the walls of the Griffin Museum this summer.

We are thrilled to announce this years award winners –

The Arthur Griffin Legacy Award Winner – Fruma Markowitz, Hilloulah to the East and
to the West

The Griffin Lens Award – Marky Kauffmann, Red Cloud Dress

Honorable Mention – Julia Cluett, Jeff Larason, Brian Kosoff, Gail Samuelson and Stephanie Slate

Director’s Prize – Preston Gannaway (Remember Me)

Exhibition Prize – Lisa McCord (Rotan Switch)

Exhibition Artists include –

Stephen Albair, Julia Arstorp, Robert David Atkinson, Robin Bailey, Diana Bloomfield, Sally Chapman, Diana Cheren Nygren, Julia Cluett, Donna Cooper, Donna Dangott, Sandi Daniel, Adrienne Defendi, Becky Field, Preston Gannaway, Steve Goldband & Ellen Konar, Donna Gordon, Joe Greene, Jackie Heitchue, Judi Iranyi, Susan Isaacson, Marky Kauffmann, Susan Keiser, Lali Khalid, Karen Klinedinst, Brian Kosoff, Alison Lake, Celia Lara, Jeff Larason, Phil Lewenthal, Susan Lirakis, Landry Major, Fruma Markowitz, Cheryl Medow, Carolyn Monastra, Judith Montminy, C.E. Morse, Jim Nickelson, Charlotte Niel, David Oxton, Allison Plass, Robin Radin, Mary Reeve, Astrid Reischwitz, Nancy Roberts, Lee Rogers, Gail Samuelson, Gordon Saperia, Jeff Sass, Mari Saxon, Jeff Schewe, Li Shen, Anastasia Sierra, Frank Siteman, Stephanie Slate, Cynthia Smith, Janet Smith, Vanessa R. Thompson, Vaune Trachtman, Leanne Trivett S, Leslie Twitchell, Terri Unger, Alan Wagner, Anne Walker, Suzanne Theodora White, Thomas Winter, Torrance York, Michael Young and Yelena Zhavoronkova

Join us for the opening reception on July 11th from 6 to 8pm. Our juror will be in attendance.

Thank you to Ann Jastrab from Center for Photographic Art, Carmel for a beautiful exhibition.

Ann M. Jastrab is the Executive Director at the Center for Photographic Art (CPA) in Carmel, California. CPA strives to advance photography through education, exhibition and publication. These regional traditions — including mastery of craft, the concept of mentorship, and dedication to the photographic arts — evolved out of CPA’s predecessor, the renowned Friends of Photography established in 1967. While respecting these West Coast traditions, CPA is also at the vanguard of the future of photographic imagery. Before coming onboard at CPA, Ann worked as the gallery director at RayKo Photo Center and the gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery, both in San Francisco.

Alina Saranti | Far From

Posted on June 1, 2025

The Griffin is pleased to present the work of Alina Saranti as part of our celebration of our member artists. Ms. Saranti was included in our 30th Annual Juried Members exhibition, winning the Directors Prize.

In my project “Far From” I want to make visible what landscape photography can look like for a female photographer with child rearing responsibilities. I combine landscape photographs of the American West with embroidery to challenge the masculinity of traditional landscape photography and the myth of the West. Landscape photography was traditionally dominated by male photographers as it was deemed unsafe and impractical for women who were constrained to the domestic sphere, close to their housekeeping and child rearing duties. The myths of the American West, its rugged, open, wild landscape have also been closely associated with macho masculinity, the idea of the independent, tough man, ready to draw on his weapon, to conquer and defend the land. Landscape photography also contributed to the history of conquest of the West with its role in surveying and controlling.

Embroidery, on the other hand, has been traditionally labelled as women’s work. It has been seen as something that women can do within the safety of the home, producing artifacts to decorate its interior, keeping them out of harm’s way and out of trouble, compatible with their domestic duties and especially child rearing as it can be put aside and resumed at will. Landscape photography was deemed too far, too dangerous, too incompatible with being a woman.

Things have changed and landscape photography is open to female photographers now. Or is it? I made the black and white landscape photographs used in this project at the fringes of family trips. I embroidered them in the safety of my home, between school drops offs and pickups, kids’ illnesses, and school holidays, often with children in the same room, the work repeatedly interrupted and resumed. I am drawing on the history of embroidery as both a symbol of female submission and a weapon of resistance for women, and overlaying that to the masculinity of landscape photography and the American West. Stitching usually has to do with mending or embellishing; my marks are the feminine overlaying the masculine, they are imposing on it, cracking it open, splitting it apart, growing into it.

About Alina Saranti –

Alina Saranti is a Greek photographic artist currently living in Los Angeles, having also lived in the UK and Turkey. Her work begins autobiographically and explores the synergies and tensions between text and image, the physical alteration of the photographic print, as well as themes of motherhood, place, our inner and outer landscapes, the personal and political.

After a ten-year career in journalism in Athens and London, writing mainly about international politics, she has shifted her focus to telling stories through photographic projects. Saranti received a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, an MSc in International Relations from London School of Economics, and an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (Distinction).

Saranti has won Director’s Prize at the Griffin Museum’s Annual Juried Members Exhibition, Honorable Mention at the Julia Margaret Cameron Award and at the Los Angeles Center of Photography’s Annual Members Exhibition. She has exhibited in galleries and museums in Athens, Barcelona, Boston, Calgary and New York. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including The Boston Globe, Opt West, Aesthetica Magazine, Source, Black River Magazine, Global Zoo Zine, and the Imagined Landscape Journal.

Topography of Being Human

Posted on May 30, 2025

Featuring works by Teri Figliuzzi, Evy Huppert, Emily Laux, Leslie Gleim, Laila Nahar, Shelagh Howard, Donna Tramontozzi, Marsha Wilcox, Mandi Ballard and Kym Ghee

Curated by Aline Smithson

This exhibition brings together a group of female photographers who delve into the layered terrain of existence—traversing the visible and invisible, the personal and the cosmic. Their work maps the contours of human presence across time and space: from ancient galaxies to the mountains of Chile and volcanoes in Hawaii; from landscapes etched with memory and transformation to intimate encounters with the human body and self-expression.
The Topography of Being Human draws inspiration from the concept of topography—the detailed mapping of a surface—reimagined here as a metaphor for the human condition. The artists in this exhibition excavate these contours, revealing the emotional, cultural, environmental, and philosophical dimensions that shape who we are.
Their images explore the interconnections between self and other, memory and place, species and system. They examine how environments reflect our histories and how human actions reshape the world around us—from the spread of invasive species to the quiet transformations of a walk in the park.
This exhibition is a celebration of perception and presence—a meditation on our moment in time, our place on Earth and in the heavens, and the feminine perspective on the layered experiences of being human.

Teri Figulizzi – North Woods is a remote sanctuary within Central Park, where the relentless energy of New York City softens into stillness. In the hush following a snowfall, the scene transforms—ephemeral, pristine, and profoundly moving. Through captured images interwoven with metallic threads and delicate papers, I seek to preserve that luminous calm and the serene essence of winter. My work is a tribute to nature’s subtle strength and the fragile, enduring beauty that often goes unnoticed.

Marsha Wilcox – Ancient Light
Vincent van Gogh said, “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” I have loved looking at the night sky all my life. In this time of relentless news-cycles, political unrest and social turmoil, the majesty of the universe reminds me that although we are insignificant and transient, we are connected to something infinitely larger and timeless.

Donna Tramontozzi – DEEP TIME
Climate change is real, but it won’t destroy the Earth. It will change the Earth, but the Earth will endure as it has endured comets, asteroids, mass extinctions and tectonic shifts. This belief gives me comfort when I feel my boundaries disappear and I become a part of a vast and changing universe.

Emily Laux – HOME INVASIONS is a speculative narrative about botanical biodiversity. In Home Invasions, I imagine a world in which humans have succumbed completely to “plant blindness,” a British botanical term that refers to the human tendency to ignore plants. At the heart of my creative process is the staging of temporary installations of invasive plants in rooms where the human residents coexist with plant life, either unaware or only vaguely conscious of the intrusion of vines, branches, berries and leaves.

Evy Huppert – Atlas of Remembered Dreams explores rediscovering fifty-year-old memories hidden in overexposed, weather-damaged 35 mm black and white film rolls holding images from a 10,000- kilometer nine month backpacking road/rail/ferry trip from Ireland to India on $5/day. Unable afterwards to print from the resulting almost opaque, disappointing negatives, I left them to curl their way into old age in an old family trunk for decades. Then, entering old age myself and becoming the family archivist, I realized a digital film scanner and digital editing tools might open these analog images. One by one, a hundred scans of curly negatives slowly became a hundred windows to the past. Memories of each place and event I had recorded on the long eastward road surfaced like remembered dreams, gritty and foggy, often filmed through the dirty windows of trains, busses, and ferries. The project is ongoing.

Shelagh Howard – The Secret Keepers were created through seven stages of editing, printing, reworking and reprinting: an intentionally arduous process mirrors the average of seven attempts it takes to permanently leave an abusive partner.

Combining digital long exposures, tintypes and sliver prints, this project guides us into discussion about intimate partner abuse, including psychological abuse and coercive control, moving this epidemic out of the shadows and into the light.

These images embody not only what is difficult to put into words, but also what it’s not safe for me to say. Holding secrets in their silent embrace, they reveal only what we are brave enough to see, containing answers to questions that we must find the courage to start asking.

Laila Nahar – Lost Space Living in Our Mind is about living in a place and the experience while revealing the place as both a subject and a collaborator. The photographs emerged when the novelty, particularity and excitement faded away. It was born from the feelings that seeped in the depths of our soul, into our existence. When acceptance and contradictions of the moment lost its grip on us. It is the sudden deep breath that pauses everything and the moment spreads through our existence. Just the hopping of a little bird, the sudden darkening of the sky in anticipation of monsoon rain, or the woman on the roof taking a moment of pause to look at the sky after hanging the washed clothes. Suddenly we are freed from the moment; something rises like the swelling tide. It became a book when feelings and remembrance become the reflection of each other.

Kym Ghee – Unsilenced is a documentation of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, using multiple segments of images to expand the storytelling. This decaying institution, located in the midst of wild Appalachian Mountains, is a site where beauty and tragedy coexisted for the people who were committed to the institution, particularly women. Walking through the grounds, there is a strong but silent presence of the women who were too often committed not for madness, but for annoying their husbands, resisting the roles society prescribed to them, defying the expectations of their time. Labeled as insane, many were never released, living out their lives and dying within the asylum’s walls, forgotten and unheard.

Mandi Ballard – Shift
Through:
creation of images and objects, I am on a journey to express the intangible.
Following a pathway alone, exploring the Mystery.  The struggle is me.

Leslie Gleim – Life of the Land is an ongoing body of work from Hawai‘i Island that tells the story of Earth’s evolution through a bird’s-eye perspective, photographed from a helicopter. It unfolds as a creation story — showcasing the land’s fiery birth, transformation, and rebirth. It speaks of the land’s beginnings, transformation, adaptation, and resilience — where past and present converge to raise questions about the future. This landscape becomes a microcosm, reflecting the natural and human forces shaping the fate of our planet.

André Ramos-Woodard | BLACK SNAFU

Posted on May 30, 2025

Anti-Blackness seems inescapably mixed into whatever context I place it into; literature, science, government, health, art… look into any “field” and see for yourself. My people have had to cry, scream, and fight for respect for centuries, and we still have not gained what we deserve. To move past the damage this has done to our society, we can’t simply deny our history—we must recognize it. We must acknowledge the many ways in which this country has perpetuated a racial hierarchy since these lands were first colonized and stripped from indigenous peoples, and Black people were stolen from their native land and brought to America.
In BLACK SNAFU (Situation Niggas: All Fucked Up), I appropriate various depictions of Black people that I find throughout the history of cartooning and juxtapose them with photographs that celebrate and line up more authentically with my Black experience. The photographs I create vary in subject matter; I seek to include celebratory portraits, didactic still lives, and representational documentations of places rich in their relation to Black community, allowing me to fight back against the history of the racist caricature that I reclaim in my work. By combining these ambivalent visual languages, I intend to expose to viewers America’s deplorable connection to anti-Black tropes through pop culture while simultaneously celebrating the reality of what it means to be Black.

About André Ramos-Woodard

Raised in the Southern states of Tennessee and Texas, André Ramos-Woodard (he/they) is a photo-based artist who uses their work to emphasize the experiences of marginalized communities while accenting the repercussions of contemporary and historical discrimination.
His art conveys ideas of communal and personal identity, influenced by their direct experience with life as a queer African American. Focusing on Black liberation, queer justice, and the reality of mental health, he aspires for his art to help bring power to the people.
Selected for Foam Museum’s Foam TALENT Award in 2024 and a two-time top-50 Finalist for Photolucida’s Critical Mass (in 2020 and 2023), Ramos-Woodard has shown their work at various institutions across the United States a beyond, including the Foam Museum–The Netherlands, Amsterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston–Houston, Texas, Leon Gallery–Denver, Colorado, and FILTER Photo–Chicago, Illinois. He received his BFA from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and his MFA at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We are grateful to the Cummings Foundation for their support of the arts and the Griffin Museum. The Cummings Residency program highlights artists of diverse backgrounds and using their specific skill set, work to create a photographically based exhibition as a result of their connection to the Griffin Museum, Winchester and surrounding areas, while engaging in critical dialogues about art and culture with both the youth and adult community they inhabit. Using photography as a bridge to building relationships, the Cummings Fellow creates a series of images opening up the pathways to multicultural understanding and acceptance. The museum and its partners are creating a literacy program centered around imagery, using photography as the tool, working with professional artists to talk about their communities, cultures and new and shared origin stories.

Jean-Yves Gauze: Far from the Eyes, Close to the Heart

Posted on May 23, 2025

The Griffin Museum of Photography is pleased to present Far from the Eyes, Close to the Heart, an online exhibition featuring the work of Ivorian-Rwandan conceptual artist and photographer Jean-Yves Gauze. Gauze’s project is an emotional elegy honoring his mother and a profound exploration of memory, permanence and erasure. Blurring photographs of family albums, Gauze’s opaque images makes visible the emotional weight of a lifetime marked by loss, grief and continued healing.

Project Statement
I was a three-month-old baby when I lost my mother, a woman of Rwandan descent. I never had the chance to know her personally, but her memory lives on through a family photo album passed down from my grandmother. Growing up without her was a painful journey, marked by years of grief. It wasn’t until All Saints’ Day in 2023, when my father first took me to her grave, that I began the process of healing. This pivotal moment helped me confront my long-held sorrow.

Inspired by Mame-Diarra Niang’s Léthé series on memory and forgetting, I reinterpreted my mother’s archived photographs. By scanning and blurring them, these portraits now stand as an abstract testament to her dual existence: both physically absent yet eternally present in my heart. This cathartic series, Far from the Eyes, Close to the Heart, reflects my healing journey and honors my mother’s memory through photography.

Artist Biography
Jean-Yves Gauze (b. 1997, Côte d’Ivoire) is an Ivorian-Rwandan conceptual artist and photographer based in Abidjan. He began his artistic journey with photography and further developed his skills through the Africa Foto Fair workshops curated by renowned photographer Aida Muluneh. Through a conceptual and critical approach, Gauze’s work explores the dynamic interplay of digital technologies, visual culture, and memory in shaping our relationship with images. His work has recently gained recognition in esteemed publications such as No! Wahala Magazine, Tender Photo, and Quadro Magazine.

Yulia Spiridonova | Unseen Presence: Homeland Hues

Posted on May 22, 2025

The Griffin Museum of Photography is pleased to present an online exhibition featuring photographs by Russian artist Yulia Spiridonova. Her project, Unseen Presence: Homeland Hues documents the upheaval caused by the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Her images illuminate the challenges and resilience of Russian expatriates in the midst of international conflict by photographing the Russian diaspora in Boston.

Unseen Presence: Homeland Hues

When Russia announced the beginning of its “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine—a euphemism the government uses for war—any opposition to the aggression became a punishable offense. Most of my friends and I felt we had no choice but to leave the country as a sign of protest. Our communities were uprooted and scattered across different continents, countries, cities, and time zones. Many of us have lost our jobs, and our lives revolve around problems with visas, passports, work permits, and financial instability.

We live in a perpetual state of insecurity, but are unwilling to return home out of fear of being drafted into the army, or jailed for our artwork or comments on social media. In the extensive history of repression, dating back to the philosophers’ ships which transported expelled intellectuals in the early days of the USSR, Russian immigrants living in exile have faced the ongoing challenge of performing a constant act to camouflage their identity and remain invisible.

Feeling alienated under these precarious living conditions, I am rebuilding my community by photographing members of the current Russian diaspora in Boston. I find them through Telegram chats and occasional events. Since a lot of the people I photograph have legal issues being present in the US, I ask them to collaborate on how much they are willing to reveal their identity. I photograph them in neutral territory—streets, parks, parking lots, or studios—in places that are anonymous and empty.

The events of last year thrust us into a nomadic lifestyle. Without a clear sense of how long we can stay, most of us do not have much with us. We try to blend in by mimicking natives, yet everyone can identify our accent. My work is a visual study of the Russian community—identifiable, present, and opaque at the same time.

About the artist

Yulia Spiridonova is a multimedia lens-based artist, working across photography, collage, and installation. She holds a Post-Baccalaureate certificate and an MFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she earned the Abelardo Morell Thesis Prize (2024). She received fellowships from Anderson Ranch (2023) and MASS MoCA Studios (2024). Based in Boston, she currently works as a Teaching Assistant at Harvard’s Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies.

Vision(ary) – People of Chelsea | Darlene DeVita & Sarah Putnam

Posted on May 19, 2025

About the People of Chelsea project –

The People of Chelsea Project was born from a deep love of the city of Chelsea, for its rich culture, vibrant beauty, and resilient community. Just across the harbor and only a bridge away from Boston, yet culturally distinct from its larger metropolitan neighbor, Chelsea is too often overlooked.
This project features and celebrates its residents, businesses, and institutions – from activists to entrepreneurs, from city officials to students, from old timers to newcomers. The People of Chelsea project is a positive mirror to the community and an homage to those who make the city work every day, across ages, experiences, and languages. Particularly during the mire of COVID-19, the project was a meaningful departure from the disaster-oriented media narratives about Chelsea, and each showing of this work became a source of civic pride. Through strong local collaborations, we have highlighted a community that is so much more than its pandemic losses: a Chelsea that is resilient, creative, courageous and just.
As the project has reached new audiences in and beyond Chelsea, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. People have been delighted to see their own images and stories as well as those of their friends, family, and neighbors. That momentum continues to grow as the project evolves. There are many more stories to be shared and people to be made visible.

About Darlene DeVita and Sarah Putnam –

Darlene DeVita has been a professional photographer for 30 years, and a resident of Chelsea, MA for two decades. She began the People of Chelsea Project in 2016. Her early career as one of the pre-eminent wedding photographers in the Boston area fine-tuned her skills photographing people, and this, combined with her innate love of community, is evident in the passion she brings to the People of Chelsea Project. More recently, Dar’s professional photography illuminates the work of local non-profits, schools, and corporations. Her clients have included The Boston Foundation, Athenahealth, La Colaborativa, Vinfen, MAB Community Services, Wentworth Institute of Technology, among others.

Sarah Putnam joined Darlene DeVita on the People of Chelsea Project in 2018, primarily to help in Spanish-speaking situations, conducting and editing interviews, and collaborating on the photographs by providing another set of eyes. Sarah has been in her own right a writer and freelance photographer for national publications and organizations for decades. Her writing has ranged from feature stories to interviews to reviews, her photographs have appeared in magazines and books, been included in both group and solo exhibitions, and she has produced multimedia pieces for the web. She was a Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute.

The Griffin @ Lafayette City Center Passageway is located at 2 Ave de Lafayette in Downtown Crossing, Boston. The passageway connects Macy’s, the Lafayette Tower offices and the Hyatt Regency, Boston. For more information please contact the museum at 781.729.1158