Griffin Museum of Photography

12th Annual Self-Published Photobook Show

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This year the 12th Annual Self-Published Photobook Show had one call for entry which will result in live exhibitions at Davis Orton Gallery plus a live exhibition at the Griffin. There will be an Online Catalog as well.  The Griffin Museum exhibition will be live in the Atelier Gallery at the Griffin. The Griffin will link the exhibition to its Photography Artist Book Initiative on-line gallery as well.

The jurors were Karen Davis and Paula Tognarelli. Karen Davis is the Curator/Co-owner of the Davis Orton Gallery. Paula Tognarelli is the Executive Director & Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography as of the jurying period.

PHOTOBOOK, an annual competition, was open to photographers in the United States and abroad who have self-published a photobook.  There are growing options available for self-publishing a book such as on-demand (blurb, lulu, magcloud, etc.); small run offset or web printing/publishing firms, binderies. If they have been hand-made/bound, they must be available in multiples of at least 25.

Entrants were able to submit up to three different titles that are self-published photobooks of any size, format, or style.

The photobooks were  juried by their PDFs. They were judged on the basis of: book design including page layouts, text, cover; strength of the photography;  and emotional impact of the overall book. All judging was at the complete discretion of the gallery/museum and all decisions of the gallery/museum were final.

All submissions had to be original works of authorship created by the photographer who submitted the submission.

The Davis Orton Gallery will break the photobooks into 2 exhibitions. Photographers with last names beginning with A through K will run at Davis Orton Gallery from November 20 – December 5, 2021.

Photographers with last names beginning with M through W will run at Davis Orton Gallery December 5 – December 19, 2021.

The Griffin Museum’s Photobook exhibition will be January 6 – February 27, 2022 in the Atelier Gallery.

Here is a link to the online catalog.  The link will open to Davis Orton Gallery catalog page.

The 43 photobook photographers listed below and in the catalog are alphabetically listed by artist’s last name. All proceeds from the sale of the books go directly to the artist. On the catalog page click the name of the photographer to learn more about each artist. Click the website links to see photographers’ websites. Click “To Purchase” in the catalog  for purchase info or to be directed to the purchase site. Photographer is responsible for all aspects of his/her book except when others are credited. Prices listed in the catalog do not include shipping or taxes, if applicable.

The exhibiting photobook authors in the exhibitions are listed below.

All Book information is listed in the catalog link.

Debra Achen, Stephen Albair, Stan Banos, Gary Beeber, Bruce Berkow, Mike Callaghan, Nicholas Costopoulas, Maureen Drennan, Melissa Eder, Mark Faber, Jake Foster, Samantha Goss, Joe Greene, Anita Harris, Timothy Hearsum, Samantha Herbert, Judi Iranyi, Doug Johnson, Kevin B. Jones, Kate and Geir Jordahl, Matthew Kamholtz, Stella Kramer, Philip Malkin, Andy Mattern, Forest McMullin, Meryl Meisler, Linda Morrow, Laila Nahar, Fern Nesson, Donna Oglesby, Robert Paheco, Robert Palumbo, Betty Press, Keron Psillas, Renato Rampolla, Joanne Ross, Patricia Scialo, Ron Snider, Benjamin Tankersley, Sal Taylor Kydd, Julia Vandenoever, Thomas Whitworth and Sharon Wickham

Winter Solstice 2021

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December is the time of year when we celebrate the members of our Griffin community. Winter Solstice brings together our creative artists to showcase their work spanning all genres, methods and ideas. This year we have over 150 members prints. Purchase the work here in the museum shop.

The artists featured in this years edition of Winter Solstice –

Thom Adorney, Debe Arlook, Frank Armstrong, Mark Barnette, Gary Beeber, Sheri Lynn Behr, Barry Berman, Meg Birnbaum, Edward Boches, Maureen Bond, Adele Q. Brown, Valerie Burke, Jessica Burko, Joy Bush, Ronald Butler, Lisa Cassell-Arms, Vicente Cayuela, Sally Chapman, Diana Cheren Nygren, Fehmida Chipty, Bill Clark, Bryon Clemence, Richard Alan Cohen, David Comora, Bridget Conn, Lee Cott, Sue D’Arcy Fuller, Donna Dangott, L. Aviva Diamond, Steve Edson, Yourgos Efthymiadis, Libby Ellis, Mark Farber, Ellen Feldman, Diane Fenster, Laura Ferraguto, Kev Filmore, Gail Fischer, Sarah Forbes, Julianne Sauron, Erik Gehring, Dennis Geller, Marc Goldring, Cassandra Goldwater, Trelawney Goodell, Audrey Gottlieb, Amy Greenleaf, Nicola Hackl-Haslinger, Maureen Haldeman, Harvey Halpern, Law Hamilton, Diane Hemingway, Janis Hersh, Susan Higgins, Jack Holmes, Karen Hosking, Evy Huppert, Mark India, Carol Isaak, Thomas Janzen, Leslie Jean Bart, Marcy Juran, Eva Kaniasty, Deborah Kaplan, Susan Kaprov, Matthew Kattman, Marky Kauffman, Lee Kilpatrick, Karen Klinedinst, Joan Kocak, Janice Koskey, Teresa Kruszewski, Jaimie Ladysh, Susan Lapides, Jeff Larason, Rhonda Lashley Lopez, Al Levin, Stephen Levin, Mrk Levinson, Elizabeth Libert, Susan Lirakis, Anna Litvak Henzenon, Marcia Lloyd, Jurgen Lobert, Joan Lobis Brown, Joni Lohr, Connie Lowell, James Mahoney, Charles Maniaci, Fruma Markowitz, Kathleen Massi, Karen Matthews, Morgaine Matthews, George McClintock, Natalie McGuire, Iaritza Menjivar, Ralph Mercer, Olga Merrill, Judith Montminy, Susan Moffat, Lisa Mossel Vietze, Maureen Mulhern White, Sally nasi, Bonnie Newman, Dale Niles, Karen Olson, Todd Paige, Jaye R. Phillips, Anne Piessens, Lori Pond, R. Lee Post, Robin Radin, Angela Ramsey, Robert Reasenberg, Suzanne Revy, Darrell Rock, Joan Robbio, Karin Rosenthal, Dennis Roth, Angela Rowlings, Natasha Rudenko, Claudia Ruiz Gustafson, Lisa Ryan, Gordon Saperia, Rob Schadt, Nancy Scherl, Sharon Schindler, jean Schnell, Tony Schwartz, Patricia Scialo, Amy Selwyn, Kerry Sharkey Miller, Stephen Sheffield, Stephanie Sheppard, Anastasia Sierra, Leland Smith, Janet Smith, Larry Smuckler, David Sokosh, Dennis Stein, Betty Stone, Heidi Straube, Vicky Stromee, Sean K. Sullivan, Neelakantan Sunder, Frank Tadley, Matt Temple, Mark Thayer, Stefanie Timmerman, Vaune Trachtman, Donna Tramontozzi, Kathleen Tunnell-Handel, Amir Viskin, Martha Wakefield, Brad Wakoff, Sharon Wickham, Jeanne Widmer, Jenn Wood, Holly Worthington, Kiyomi Yatsuhashi

Once Upon a Time: Photographs That Inspire Tall Tales

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The Exhibitors for Once Upon a Time: Photographs That Inspire Tall Tales are:
Mary Aiu, Jan Arrigo, Joan Barker, Carson Barnes, Andrea Birnbaum, Meg Birnbaum, Lora Brody, Sally Chapman, Diana Cheren Nygren, Jaina Cipriano, Cheryl Clegg, Ashley Craig, L. Aviva Diamond, Suzette Dushi, Steven Edson, Diane Fenster, Kev Filmore, Alexa Frangos, William Franson, Carole Glauber, Nadide Goksun, Elizabeth Greenberg, Marsha Guggenheim, Sarah Hadley, Maureen Haldeman, Julie Hamel, Joan Haseltine, Sandy Hill, Mark Indig, Carol Isaak, Leslie Jean-Bart, Diana Nicholette Jeon, Marcy Juran, Asia Kepka, Karen Klinedinst, Anne Kornfeld, Teresa Kruszewksi, Anna Litvak-Hinenzon, Marcia Lloyd, Joni Lohr, Bruce Magnuson, George McClintock, Yvette Meltzer, Ralph Mercer, Judith Montminy, Charlotte Niel, Steven Parisi-Gentile, Ave Pildas, Russ Rowland, Ellen Royalty, Lisa Ryan, Nathalie Seaver, Sarah Silks, Felice Simon, Elin O’Hara Slavick, Zachary Stephens, Vicky Stromee, Stefanie Timmermann, Leanne Trivett, Vicki Whicker, Suzanne Williamson, Dianne Yudelson, Nina Weinberg Doran, Joanne Zeis, Mike Zeis and Charlyn Zlotnik.

See review by What Will You Remember.

This exhibition in our Lafayette Gallery is to be called Once Upon a Time: Photographs That Inspire Tall Tales.

A catalog is available.

Curator’s Essay Once Upon a Time

 

 

We were looking for photographs that inspire story telling. It could be fiction. It could be fact. We were looking for photographs that are fodder for formulating a narrative.

From photographs chosen  for the Once Upon a Time: Photographs That Inspire Tall Tales exhibition for the wall at our Lafayette City Center Passageway Gallery, our audience and invitees will then be asked to visit the exhibition, and write stories inspired from a photograph in the Once Upon a Time: Photographs That Inspire Tall Tales exhibition and to submit the stories to the Griffin Museum. We will also invite area schools (all levels) and colleges to participate in the writing exercises as well as the general public.

Deadline for writing submissions is January 14, 2022 at Midnight Pacific Time. We will feed the stories to the jurors as we get them.

Where the submissions of writings will be sent is to photos at griffin museum dot org.

We will invite selected authors of stories (chosen by jurors Cassandra Goldwater and Jill Frances Johnson) to read or speak their stories in an event held on March 6th during the closing reception at Lafayette City Center.

There will be 3 cash awards of $100 chosen from photographs and 3 cash awards chosen by writing juror(s) from written narratives. The award money is from an anonymous donor.

The jurors for the writing exercises are Cassandra Goldwater and Jill Frances Johnson.

woman with glassesCassandra Goldwater is a former adjunct professor at Lesley University where she taught Creative Nonfiction, freshman English and survey literature classes to undergraduates for almost 10 years. Additionally, she mentored students in the Low Residency MFA program in word image projects. Partnering with Karen Davis, she co-taught Word Image in the extension program at Lesley. She holds an MFA from Lesley University, an MBA from Simmons College, and a BA from the University of New Hampshire.

Goldwater’s commentary on the photographic work of Jennette Williams and Hellen van Meene appeared in the Women’s Review of Books. Her essay “Then What?” was published in the former online journal Perceptions.

woman with arms crossedJill Frances Johnson is the Assistant Nonfiction Editor at Solstice Literary Magazine. Jill earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA in 2017 after graduating from Smith College in the Ada Comstock Scholars Program for nontraditional (older!) students. Her work appears in Under the Gum Tree and Clockhouse and SolsticeLitMag. Her current project is a memoir Water Skiing in Kashmir about her expat life during the ‘60’s.

Jill blogs at vermontwritercooks and @jillvtbrat on Twitter and Instagram. She divides her time between the green hills of Vermont and the artsy city of St Petersburg, Fl.

E. caballus: The Domesticated Horse

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The overarching idea of E. caballus is simply the domesticated horse. All included solo exhibitions are threaded together by photographs and narratives related to these large single-toed, beautiful animals of today. The seven photographers included in E. caballus are: Mary Aiu, Chris Aluka Berry, Anne M. Connor, Susan Irene Correia, Landry Major, Ivan McClellan and Keron Psillas Oliveira.

Mary Aiu – Unbridled: The Horse at Liberty (In the Main Gallery)
Bio
Statement
CV
View Website

Chris Aluka Berry – Second Chances: Josh’s Salvation (In the Main Gallery)
Bio and Statement
View Website

Anne M. Connor – Equus: The Horse (In the Main Gallery)
Statement
Bio
View Website

Susan Irene Correia- Power – Dance with Beauty, Play with Abandon, Be Loved (In the Main Gallery)
Statement
Bio
View Website

Landry Major – Keepers of the West (In the Main Gallery)
Statement
Bio and CV 
View Website

Ivan B. McClellan – Eight Seconds (In the Main Gallery)
Bio and Statement
View Website

Keron Psillas Oliveira – Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within (In the Main Gallery and Founder’s Gallery)
Statement
Bio
View Website
Keron Psillas Oliveira’s Cavalo Lusitano is available in our gift store.

 

 

 

 

We are pleased to have partnered with Life Between the Ears, based on Vashon Island, Washington with product in our Museum Shop and buttons available during our opening reception.

 

The 2021 Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture Exhibition

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Maine Media Workshops + College Announces Rashod Taylor as Recipient of 2021 Arnold Newman Prize, One of the Nation’s Largest in the World of Photographic Portraiture

Examining Themes of Race, Culture, Family, and Legacy, Taylor’s Intimate Work Will Be on View at The Griffin Museum through October 24, 2021

The Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture is a $20,000 prize awarded annually by Maine Media Workshops + College to a photographer whose work demonstrates a compelling new vision in photographic portraiture.

Taylor’s award-winning work entitled Little Black Boy–modeled in part after a family photo album–offers not only a window into his family story, but also into the Black American experience.

About the Winner: Rashod Taylor (b.1985) is an emerging contemporary photographer who uses the frameworks and methods allied with the history of fine art portraiture to contemplate his own family’s narrative within contemporary America. His photographs are deeply rooted to photographic traditions and break new ground. Taylor is attached to analog practice–the large format camera, the slowing down and honoring of the moment, and the attraction to rich the lush prints produced from his home darkroom–all such factors underline his sentimentality, thoughtfulness, and ally him to the history of family portraiture while adding to its legacy;its future. Taylor attended Murray State University and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Art with a specialization in Fine Art Photography. He has since exhibited and been published nationally and internationally.

Implied in the title, Taylor pays particular attention to the relationship between father and son in his series. “As I document my son, I am interested in examining his childhood and the world he navigates. At the same time, these images show my own unspoken anxiety and fragility as it pertains to the wellbeing of my son and fatherhood,” explains Taylor. “He can’t live a carefree childhood as he deserves; there is a weight that comes with his blackness, a weight that he is not ready to bear.”

2021 Finalists: The finalists this year include Donavon Smallwood with Languor,  Christian K. Lee with Armed Doesn’t Mean Dangerous, and GOLDEN with On Learning How to Live.

About the Award: The Prize is funded by the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation and administered by Maine Media Workshops + College. The influential and revered photographer and educator, Arnold Newman, enjoyed a decades’ long association with Maine Media, where he taught numerous photographic workshops over the years. The Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation has continued his legacy at the College, supporting scholarships, media production, a distinguished lecture series, and the prestigious Arnold Newman Prize in Photographic Portraiture–a cash prize of $20,000 accompanied by an exhibition awarded annually to a photographer whose work demonstrates a compelling new vision in photography.

About the Selection Process: Selected by a jury of world-renowned photographers Daniella Zalcman (2021 Catchlight Fellow, grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation, a National Geographic Society grantee, and the founder of Women Photograph), Brent Lewis (co-founder of Diversify Photo, a photo editor at The New York Times, working on the Business Desk), and Lisa Volpe (Associate Curator, Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), each juror brought to the selection process a unique perspective guided by distinguished insight, analysis, and integrity.

The winner and finalists for the 2021 Arnold Newman Prize in Photographic Portraiture are invited to participate in a museum exhibition.

About the Exhibition: The Griffin Museum of Photography will exhibit Taylor’s award-winning work, as well as that of the finalists, from October 5 through 24. On October 7, the LIVE awards ceremony and LIVE reception will take place. We will broadcast on Facebook Live during the award ceremony and sporadically during the reception itself. See the Facebook event on our Griffin Museum page for the reception to engage on Facebook.

About the Arnold & Augusta Newman Foundation: Thanks to a generous gift of $1.125M from the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation, the largest philanthropic contribution in the history of Maine Media College, the resources from this permanent endowment will be used to cultivate and celebrate the photographic arts. “Arnold Newman had a profound influence on photographers in the latter half of the 20th Century,” noted Maine Media President Michael Mansfield. “That his legacy continues to shape conversations around photography, to support new generations of image makers – portraiture in the 21st century – is truly inspiring.”

For more information or to schedule an interview with Maine Media’s 2021 Arnold Newman Prize winner Rashod Taylor, The Arnold and Augusta Newman Provost at Maine Media Workshops + College Elizabeth Greenberg, or one of the jurors, please contact Raffi DerSimonian: 207.756.0916 or press@mainemedia.edu.

About Maine Media: Founded in 1973 as a summer school for photographers, Maine Media Workshops + College is now a not-for-profit degree granting institution offering more than 400 workshops, certificate programs, and master classes in the fields of photography, film, media art, printmaking, creative writing, and book arts, and serves nearly 2,000 national and international students annually on a 20 acre campus in Rockport, Maine.

The Infinite Mirage of Rapture

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Statement
These works communicate the complex grief of growing up as a woman in a culture dedicated to stifling authentic emotion and communication. This is especially precarious for those of us who fear abandonment, as it is easy, in our search for love and connection, to get caught in a web of codependency without any means of emotional salvation.

I am interested in creating a space where people with similar trauma can feel witnessed by others as the first step to liberation from this cycle of silence, the facade of isolation. My pieces depict cut-off subjects struggling to escape liminal spaces. When they realize no one is coming to save them, they seek the strength to save themselves.

Bio
Jaina Cipriano is a Boston based artist communicating with the world through photography, film and installation. Her works explore the emotional toll of religious and romantic entrapment.

Jaina creates her photographs in built sets, forgoing digital manipulation because she believes creating something truly immersive starts with the smallest details. A self taught carpenter, she loves a challenge and her larger than life sets draw inspiration from the picture books and cartoons of her childhood.

Jaina writes and directs short films that wrestle with the complicated path of healing. In 2020 she released ‘You Don’t Have to Take Orders from the Moon’, a surrealist horror film wrestling with the gravity of deep codepency. Her second short, ‘Trauma Bond’ is a dreamy coming of age thriller and is planned for a 2022 release.

Working with many local organizations to support and strengthen the community, Jaina was a judge for The Arlington International Film Festival, she dispersed funds for the inter-media portion of the Somerville Arts Council Grant Board, built sets for Arlington Friends of the Drama and served on the board of the New England Sculptors Association. Jaina is also the founder of Finding Bright, a design studio specializing in set building for music videos as well as hosting events that bring the Boston art scene together.

Jaina studied at The New England School of Photography and has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions around New England.

See the interview with Jaina Cipriano for Optics.

View Jaina Cipriano’s website.

Journey to Impurity: Fighting Against Menstrual Restrictions in Nepal

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Statement
In Nepal, and according to Hinduism, the entry into adulthood is tied to a loss of purity.  In some rural areas, menstrual women are exiled for a week, a practice known as Chhaupadi Partha. When they are on their period they are not allowed to enter their houses, visit the temples, attend festivities, cook, touch specific fruits and trees, or eat with their own family. Sometimes, they are not even allowed to look or talk to any male relative.

Every year, women die from following this tradition, bitten by animals or choked from the fumes in the small, non-ventilated huts they stay in during their periods. Although Chhaupadi Partha has existed for decades, Nepali society is trying to change. In August 2017, for the first time in history, the country criminalized the isolation of the menstrual women with a three-month jail sentence or a 3,000 rupee fine ($30), or both, for anyone that forces a woman to follow the custom.

In Kathmandu, a new generation of young people is reinventing traditions, making them their own. Some people from rural areas have started to question these practices and became activists, and a growing number of them lead organizations and are empowering young girls in rural areas and teaching them about hygiene. Some villages are already liberated from the practice. Last May 2018, Menstrual Hygiene Day was celebrated the first time in Kathmandu with the theme ‘Education about menstruation changes everything’. “Since I was a kid I have it clear, I was not going to go to the hut to sleep as my mother and sisters,” says Radha Paudel, a Menstrual Activist of Nepal and an author. “I’m sure the solution is in the education and in the younger minds, and that step by step we’re going to achieve what we are dreaming of”.

Bio
Maria Contreras Coll is a documentary photographer based in Barcelona, Spain.

Maria has the need to tell people’s stories from an intimate perspective. She is especially interested in gender issues and how women are re-defining social structures in different countries and religions. She is a National Geographic Explorer 2020-2021 and a member of Women Photograph, and she is currently participating in a three-year program as a mentee to James Estrin, senior staff photographer at The New York Times and co- creator of Lens Blog, and Ed Kash, member of VII Photo Agency.

After finishing her degree in Fine Arts in Barcelona, she studied a postgraduate degree in Photojournalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona as a valedictorian. She spent the next year working on the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe, traveling and living in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, Greece, France, Germany, and Morocco. She lived in Nepal during 2017 and 2018 to document how women are fighting against menstrual restrictions in the country. She is currently working on a long term project about sexual violence in her country, Spain, with Joana Biarne’s Grant support, and exploring the concepts of women and religion in different parts of the world thanks to the support of National Geographic.

Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire among others, and shown in cities such as Dubai, London, or Barcelona. She is a guest lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has recently been awarded a POYLatam for her work in Nepal.

Formal Education
2015 to 2016 Valedictorian of Postgraduate Degree in Photojournalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona
2010 to 2014 Major in Image Studies, Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona

Languages
Maria Contreras is a Spanish, native speaker, a Catalan, native speaker, speaks advanced English, conversational Portuguese and  basic conversational Nepalese.

Publications And Clients
The New York Times, The Washington Post, GEO, Marie Claire, Al Jazeera, 6Mois, Causette, Internazionale, Le Temps, Le Figaro, Open Society Fundations, Vice Media, El Pais, El Mundo, El Diario, Diari Ara, La.Vanguardia, Pear Video.

Maria Contreras Coll was a finalist for the 2020 Chervinsky Award.

 

View Maria Contreras Coll’s website.

House on Fire

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Statement
Spanning sculpture, assemblage, and photography, Kendall Pestana’s is an ongoing photographic series of constructed domestic spaces and internal landscapes that consider psychological space and the ways in which the body houses trauma. A response to the prevalence of American rape culture as well as recent backsliding of women’s rights, House On Fire is a deeply personal and visceral testament to feminine resilience. Utilizing the male-dominated visual language of surrealism in conjunction with the gendered implications of craft arts and domesticity, this ongoing body of work is a defiant reclamation of the home as an exploration of bodily space and autonomy through the lenses of gendered violence, illness and objectification.

Bio
Kendall Pestana (b. 1998) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Acton, Massachusetts. In May 2020, Kendall received her BFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with departmental honors. Spanning sculpture, photography, and animation, her work is an investigation of bodily space through the lenses of gendered violence, illness, and objectification. In July, she was featured in ArtConnect Magazine and was named among Lenscratch’s Top 25 Artists to Watch.

Kendall was a finalist for the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Chervinsky Award 2020.

CV

View Kendall Pestana’s website.

 

Raufaser

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Artistic Statement
How much can we control the past within us? Against the background of the biographies of my grandparents Irmgard Adam and Fritz Konrad I am concerned with the phenomenon of transgenerational traumatization researched in epigenetics. What is meant is the passing on of individually experienced traumas, which continue to have an effect over several years and which can reveal themselves in the self-image, in the emotional experience, in the unconscious action of future generations. I ask myself the accompanying questions: What does this mean for our generation and its descendants, what does it mean for myself? How much trauma experience of our ancestors is still in us today? How important it is to know the biographies of our grandparents better? Inspired by the confrontation with my own identity, I came across photographs, letters, documents and interviews, traveled together with my mother to fateful places in my grandparents life. As grandson I opened the small box of Irmgard Konrad’s memories: her fears, despair and loneliness keep the indescribable drama awake, but also her positive attitude to life, her social skills, her love and her tireless fight against fascism are part of the family memory and a reminding legacy at the same time. Raufaser is a photographic case study that uses own documentary photography and archival material to investigate my ancestors history. With this body of work, I want to raise awareness of how the aftermath of war and crisis can affect the generations that follow, and examine how collective memory is shaped and influenced. Creating a new sense of identity by confronting with himself with the past, spanning four generations, provides the basis for a detailed investigation of postmemory, mental health, war and history. Raufaser is a certainly a very personal story, however for me it is inseparably interwoven with our collective history as germans.

Project Statement
“It can’t have been experienced by a single person,” my grandmother sums up in a video interview for the Moses Mendelssohn Center in Potsdam in the mid-1990s. I have often heard her say this sentence. My grandmother was one of the few Holocaust survivors who were able and willing to talk about it. With her children and even more with her grandchildren. So there was a lot that was not new to me, which she told historians as well as many young people up to a ripe old age. Born in 1915 in Breslau, Silesia, politicized in the socialist youth movement, active in resistance against the Nazis, she survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, almost two years of forced labor for Siemens in the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp, and the “death march” thanks to the solidarity of other prisoners. After the liberation of the village of Kritzow in Mecklenburg by the Red Army, my grandmother went to France, hoping to find members of her family there. In Paris, she experienced for the first time again what a life in freedom feels like, only clouded by the uncertainty about the fate of her childhood love Fritz. Back in Germany in 1947 and finally reunited with him again after five years of separation, they both married a little later in Leipzig and had a daughter, my mother, in 1948. Now I am looking for traces of their eventful life, with its incredibly difficult but also beautiful times. I look for them on the outside and I look for them on the inside, deep inside me. I am interested in the phenomenon of transgenerational traumatisation, which is researched in epigenetics, i.e. the passing on of individually experienced traumas that continue to have an effect over several years and that can reveal themselves in self-image, in emotional experience, in the unconscious actions of subsequent generations. How important is it to know the biographies of our grandparents more precisely? Inspired by the confrontation with my own identity, I come across photographs, letters, documents and interviews and finally travel with my mother to fateful places in her life. On the journeys, the pictures find me, I hold on to them. As a grandson I open the boxes of my grandmother’s memories and live through her fears, despair and loneliness. They kept the indescribable drama alive for many decades. But my box of memories is also marked by her boundless love, her positive attitude towards life, her social competence, her tireless fight for humanism, against fascism and war.

Bio
Daniel Seiffert was born in 1980. Before studying photography at Ostkreuz School for Photography in Berlin, he earned a Master ’s degree in Political Science, Communication and African Studies from universities in Berlin, Potsdam and Lisbon.

Among others, Seiffert received the prestigous C/O Talents Award, Canon Award for Young Professional Photographers and has been nominated for international FOAM Paul Huf Award.

His work was widely exhibited internationally like C/O Berlin, ParisPHOTO, PhotoEspana. His self-published book “Kraftwerk Jugend” was shortlisted for the Dummy Award of 5th International Photobook Award Kassel and has been part of book shows at Le Bal Paris and at the Brighton Photo Biennial.

Since 2017 he is part of the artist colletive Apparat.
As a father of two daughters he currently lives and works as a freelance photographer and picture editor in his hometown Berlin on commissioned and personal projects.

Daniel Seiffert was a finalist for the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Chervinsky Award 2020

Awards / Grants
2020 Athens Photo Festival, Shortlist
2019 Finalist Emergentes Award, Festival Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal
2019 Finalist Portraits – Hellerau Photography Award
2018 Kolga Photo Award, Shortlist Documentary Photo Project
2015 LensCulture Emerging Talent Award
2014 Grant Stiftung Kulturwerk VG Bild-Kunst
2014 Grant HAUS am KLEISTPARK
2013 selected for CIRCULATION(S) Festival de la jeune photographie europeenne, Paris
2012 selected for Emergentes | DST 2012 Award, Festival Encontros da Imagem Braga, Portugal 2012 C/O Berlin Talents 28 Award
2012 Nomination for FOAM Paul Huf Award
2012 Kassel Photobook Dummy Award 2012, Shortlist
2009 Canon Profifoto Förderpreis 1/09 for CTRL – Research Surveillance
2005 ASA working grant, Images Davida, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Exhibitions
2020Guardas de Miramar, Festival Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal
2019 Raufaser, “Die Anderen Sind Wir. Bilder einer dissonanten Gesellschaft”, Museum of Modern Art, BLMK Cottbus 2019 Guardas de Miramar, “Portraits – Hellerau Photography Award”, Pumpenhaus Dresden
2018 Trabanten, “Sharing Space(s)”, feldfünf Metropolenhaus, Monat der Fotografie OFF, Berlin
2018 Trabanten, Kolga Tbilisi Photo Award, Georgia
2018 Trabanten, „Keep your Eyes peeled”, Gallery Weekend, aff Galerie Berlin
2017 Trabanten, „Ein Tag in Berlin – 30 Jahre danach“, Fotogalerie Friedrichshain
2017 Kraftwerk Jugend, Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie, Quebec/Canada
2017 Trabanten, Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Viseu, Portugal
2017 Keep your eyes peeled, Gallery Weekend Berlin, AFF Gallery, Berlin
2015 Kraftwerk Jugend, European Month of Photography, Goethe Institut, Minsk, Belarus
2015 LensCulture Emerging Talents 2015, San Francisco Camerawork Gallery, USA
2014 Exhibition Photography Grant Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Galerie Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin
2013 Kraftwerk Jugend, “Tracks and Traces – C/O Talents”, ParisPHOTO, Goethe Institut Paris, France
2013 Uncertain Futures, exhibition of international photography, Gallery of Photography Dublin, Ireland

2013 C/O Talents 2012, Abbeye de Neumunster, Luxembourg
2013 Tracks and Traces – C/O Berlin Talents, PHotoEspaña, Goethe Institut Madrid
2013 Screening, CIRCULATION(S), Lodz Fotofestiwal, Poland
2013 CIRCULATION(S) Festival de la jeune photographie europeenne, Parc de Bagatelle, Paris 2012 Tulca Festival of Visual Art Galway, Ireland
2012 Brighton Photo Biennial / Photobookshow
2012 Kraftwerk Jugend, C/O Talents 28, Postfuhramt, Berlin
2012 Kammerspiel, F’Stop Festival, Leipzig
2012 Photobook Dummy Award 2012. F’Stop Festival, Leipzig
2012 Photobook Dummy Award 2012. Le Bal, Paris
2012 5. Jahrgang Ostkreuzschule, Galerie Büchergilde Frankfurt/Main
2012 Kraftwerk Jugend, Galerie Sprechsaal, Berlin
2012 Photo 12 – Werkschau für Fotografie, Screening, Zürich, Schweiz
2011 SCHAU. Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie. Klasse Ute Mahler, Berlin
2011 Das Geheimnis bleibt. Modefotografie von Ute Mahler und Schülern, Halle/Saale
2011 STRG K Choreographie einer Stadt, Forum Factory, Gallery Weekend, Berlin
2011 Klopfzeichen, Unikum, Klagenfurt, Österreich
2010 Trennungen/Seperazione/Locevanje, Villach, Österreich
2010 Canon Profifoto Förderpreis, Visual Gallery, Photokina Köln
2010 Geschichts Codes 2010/Einheitsbild, ARD Hauptstadtstudio, Berlin
2007 Close Up! Junge Fotojournalisten auf der 57. Berlinale, C/O Berlin
2006 Imagens Davida, Hotel Nicacio, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

View Daniel Seiffert’s website.

Sue Michlovitz: Aqua Muse

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Statement
In Aqua Muse, Sue Michlovitz has used her images of water to represent the creative inspiration and mysteries within the medium. Water provides both solace and excitement for her being. She has selected the accordion structure to express flowing of water. Within the accordion structure, she has sewn in four signature inserts of water scenes in varying color palettes. The book has 30 original digital photographs printed on Hahnemuhl Photo Rag Duo using archival inks. This book was made with the design assistance of Eliot Dudik, during a two-week workshop at Maine Media Workshops & College, July-August 2021.

sue's bookThrough an artist book, Michlovitz expresses her images in a form that can be viewed, and handled, two essential sensory experiences for me. The viewer can turn pages at their own pace and have space and time to absorb the content, leave it open to study when walking by the table. The printed book form is particularly potent as an alternative to the world hyper-stimulation, computer screens and superfluous movement. She creates a physicality of experience within the presence of images, including the sound and feel of turning pages. Click video to left.

 

Bio
Sue Michlovitz is a visual artist living in Camden, Maine. Her interests as an artist are in photography and book arts. Her work often shows scenes that may go unnoticed by others.

She has shown her photographs at State of the Art Gallery ( Ithaca, NY), Camden Public Library (Camden, Maine), Arts in the Barn, Cushing Historical Society (Cushing, ME). Two of her books, Breathe in Water andWe Were Told to Be Quiet are currently being shown with the Mid-Coast Maine Book Arts Group at the Michael Good Gallery (Rockport, ME)

In May 2021, Michlovitz completed her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Media Arts at Maine Media College, Rockport, ME.

View Sue Michlovitz’ website.

 

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