All tagged Homecoming 2020-21

Vanessa Leroy

Vanessa Leroy

Dana Stirling

as our bodies lift up slowly (ongoing) | There isn’t a lot of space for dreaming in an oppressive world, so I use photography as a tool to create worlds where I freely navigate the various facets of my life experience and identity as a black queer woman. In this body of work titled "as our bodies lift up slowly," I weave the viewer between the past and present using archival family photographs, text, collages, and environmental portraits. I’m inspired by Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred, in which the young black protagonist Dana Franklin navigates a shifting timeline to uncover truths about her family lineage.

Additionally, I employ text from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, a story following a formerly enslaved woman named Sethe whose home is haunted by the spirit of her deceased child, creating a situation where she and her daughter are constantly swallowed by the overwhelming grief of losing years of life to brutal slavery and the loss of a life that never got to grow. I create photographs that speak to and comfort my younger self, and the versions of myself that struggled to carry the weight of having poor mental health and low self-esteem. In revisiting the past and imagining the future, I have created space for myself to heal in the present. vanessaleroy.com

Aurelia Wrenn

Aurelia Wrenn

Dana Stirling

Long winter gives way to a fleeting spring, messy and vibrant and sweetly scented in all its explosions of life. Languid midsummer stretches on, then falls. Fruits, flowers, and foodstuffs wilt and rot and glow lurid under sunlight... Beauty is made precious by its brevity. aureliawrenn.com

Jessica Swank

Jessica Swank

Dana Stirling

This body of work addresses humanity’s relationship with digital technology from a personal perspective. Through constructed photography and sculptural work, I point to the connections between humans, machines, and nature, emphasizing the blurred lines between each of these entities. Many of the overlaps and connections that I create are inspired by moments of realization as to how technology is interwoven in our lives. I use many elements that are remnants of myself or those close to me, including hair, life castings, dryer lint, and body images. I photograph the sculptural forms or assemblages I create out of these elements alongside natural materials, flesh-like membranes, and manufactured objects. The flesh-like silicone pieces represent extensions of myself and are created using tones from my own skin as a form of self-portraiture. The different ways the subjects of the photographs interact form a commentary on the seemingly dichotomous relationships between humans and machines.

The images within this series reside at the intersection of self-portraiture and documentary. A dialogue is formed between the subjects through the juxtaposition of organic and synthetic materials, such as the human body, fungi, and various manufactured objects. Their interactions within the photographs reinforce ideas of boundaries and invasion. Many of the images are direct and closely cropped, allowing the viewer to step into my own perspective. While my examination of digital technology’s impact is not comprehensive, it serves as an access point for viewers to formulate their own questions about technology’s impact on their own lived experience. Instead of offering the viewer a specific resolution, I exhibit my own process of understanding through investigation and thus provide opportunities for inquiry and self-evaluation.

David De Lira

David De Lira

Dana Stirling

Queerness represents the nucleus of my work, my own embodiment, and the subjects of my photographic gaze. My subjects share my body, and I theirs. The physicality and camaraderie between my Self and the Self of my subjects enables a casual intimacy and vulnerability, intended to translate into a shared familiarity with my audience.

My intimate relationships are with those other than myself--with large, older, white bodies that contrast against my youth and my small brown skin. My husband, my friends, and my lovers embody white American masculinity; my brown Mexican body exists within the concentric circles of privilege. Who am I to them? And what are they to me? I have no answer, and I may never. My work interrogates the seams and sutures between my body and theirs.

Austin Quintana

Austin Quintana

Dana Stirling

Where the Valley Sings combines landscapes and portraits in a series of photographs that explores the lives of my relatives residing in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. The valley my family calls home is named Cañon de Cantor— which translates to the singer's canyon. It is here where my ancestors settled, raised their families, and tended to their crops.

They were known for singing their prayers, and the valley would carry their songs. The children grew old, and generations passed into the next. I was not raised here, but my grandfather was nearby, and he tells me stories of his childhood— exploring the mountains alone, fishing, and dreaming of making this valley his home one day. Decades later, he and my grandmother were able to move onto this land, and now, in his mid 80's, he continues to plod away every day, working to preserve it.

This project is a meditation on the idea of the American dream, or the vestiges of it, and the broader conflict between humans and the natural world when we don't take care of it. The effects of drought and wildfires are ever-present and ravaging the vitality of this area. The land is not fruitful, and tenure through generations is dying. With this body of work, I have strived to create a document of life in the mountains and a deeper personal connection with the land's current ecosystems adapting to changes and trying to survive. www.austinquintana.com

Toi Ramey

Toi Ramey

Dana Stirling

A lot of my work that I’ve produced over the past few years have been centered on how identity is established through family. I’ve always captured how I’m influenced by my family, but lately I’ve become heavily entranced by my youngest nephew and the recurring impressions left on him. He is at a stage where his individuality is in flux, and I wanted to explore and document these transitions.

The work speaks on the commonalities of the black experience from one generation to the next. Through the complexities of my past and using my nephew as a conduit, I’m highlighting the parallels of adolescence through portraiture, objects, and familiar spaces. toistoryproductions.mypixieset.com

Midori Morrow

Midori Morrow

Dana Stirling

I Never Learned How to Say Goodbye | I Never Learned How to Say Goodbye is a collection of photographic works that consist of emulsion transfers using gel medium that have been transferred onto thin plastic sheets and then melted. By using this process the image is distorted, and the work represents memories and longing of a time past, creating a distinct one-of-a-kind photo object. The uniqueness plays into the understanding of the images and connections to these fleeting memories.

I wanted to create something tangible and delicate that feels like you're holding a piece of the past. For instance, a person laying in a car looking out towards the horizon, the focus is on my best friend and the feeling of pure content. The quality of light and the peacefulness of the moment were captured in this work. These photo objects, as a collective comment on a larger story of personal experiences and human connection. www.midorimorrow.com

Mark Lanning Jr.

Mark Lanning Jr.

Dana Stirling

The Flight of the Wild Duck | The story behind the flight of the wild duck has its earliest origin, for me, back in April 2017. My extended family was gathered at the home of my maternal grandparents, Carol and Jim. Jim was very near death, and I brought my wife and kids to their home for what we expected would be, and was, our last visit to him. After we said our goodbyes, we left the room so he could sleep and gathered in the front room. There we talked about Jim fondly. At some point my aunt asked my dad, Mark Sr., about being there when his father died, in July 1986.

Aunt: “Did he say anything before he died?”
Mark Sr.: “Yeah… he did. He said, ‘the flight of the wild duck.’”

I had never heard this, and it hit me like a bolt. I immediately asked what that meant, but my dad said he didn’t know, that he turned to the window when he heard it, expecting to see ducks flying by as his first reaction. He said he thought about it for a few years and decided that it was about the beauty of a duck in flight, but there really was no additional meaning. I remembered my grandfather, Richard (he went by Dick, and I, being 3 ½ years old at the time he died, called him Baba). All my memories of him are images, I don’t remember specifics like his eyes or his voice in those memories. I don’t properly remember how frail he looked when I was around because my main image of him is a Sears portrait he had made in 1973.

I began a search in libraries, online, through instances passed along from friends, and screenshots from film and TV (flying ducks are the catalyst of Tony’s journey in The Sopranos). The wild duck as an image in language has various meanings in many languages worldwide, and goes back millennia. The poem Banquet to the Personators of the Dead, a 3,000 year old ode from the Chinese book of poetry, or the Shih Ching, uses the image of wild ducks flying over a river as metaphor for communing with ancestral spirits. Wild ducks were found painted on the walls of Tutankhamen’s tomb when it was discovered in the 20’s. The surname of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, means “wild duck.” The image is used in The Arabian Nights. Henrik Isben’s play The Wild Duck uses a duck that lives with the family is a multi-faceted metaphor for each character in their own way. An apocryphal “proverb” circulates in leadership circles: “Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck leads the flock to fly and follow.” I found it in books read long before the detail would have been noticed:

“He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.”
-From The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, pg. 50

All of this and much more was found as I made the project, a growing archive of my enduring obsession with collecting these instances which has moved well beyond looking for a true source of the words and entered into accumulation.

This project is rooted in language and the passage of language, the way it is shared, withheld, forgotten, interpreted, and discovered. In my work, I wanted to touch on what my dad had said about the beauty of a flying duck while also dealing with the distance in time from the words being said and the way that time diluted the possibility of knowing the truth about why he said it. The photographs illustrate a complex transmission through interpretation, especially the unique lith prints, which are chaotic copies whose characteristics can be explained but not replicated.

Ruby Chu

Ruby Chu

Dana Stirling

Requiem (for the wayfaring stranger) | In 2018, someone told me about a cathedral with peacocks living in the backyard in New York City. Four years later, I moved into a new flat right by the Cathedral and found the peacocks upon my first visit.

I felt compelled to document the lives of these peacocks, not knowing why. So, I started visiting them weekly for over eight months. At some point, different details and motifs of their environment started presenting themselves to me. I didn’t understand why I felt such intimacy with this place and the birds, but I appreciated what awaits at the end of this labyrinth in disguise.

Eventually, this study had led me to confront my unfulfilled need for closure. In 2018, three of my friends attempted suicide, and sadly two died by it. Like others, I was helplessly left with a sense of confusion, guilt, and grief.

In this unusual urban setting in which these divine birds live, the manmade architecture and animals both appeared to be out of place, with no escape. By the juxtaposition of the recurring motifs, an understanding manifested in me. With the weight of a society that you cannot escape, I suppose I can now better understand how one has chosen to escape, a different way to find refuge. www.rubychu.com

Anton Kuehnhackl

Anton Kuehnhackl

Dana Stirling

Anton Kuehnhackl, an artist from the SF Bay Area, is interested in questioning photography's "structure" in order to generate new meaning. They believe that the medium needs to progress beyond what's established, and manipulation is key to this. Is it still enough for an image to only show one "side"? In order to show this, they construct and play with the object's properties in order to restructure new characteristics. They believe that by blurring the line between connections of the manipulator and what's being manipulated, throws the meaning at its viewer, leaving it up to them to decide what an image truly is. antontonton.com

RemiJin Camping

RemiJin Camping

Dana Stirling

A Mother’s Love | This series opens up the cabinets and dusts off the things my Mother has given me throughout the years. Born out frustration, these unused items morphed from something mostly forgotten in storage, to an appreciation for the meaning of inheritance and legacy with which the items were given. My Mother was rarely ever physically in my life or involved with my upbringing, but she to this day sends me boxes of items as her way of taking care of me. This was a cathartic process of documenting how the items are being stored, to then making them my own by way of freeform shape creation.

Each image was photographed on 4x5 Kodak Ektar color film, sometimes from 20 feet off the ground. www.remijin.com

Jesse Ryan Crosby

Jesse Ryan Crosby

Dana Stirling

My personal project, and forthcoming self-published photographic book, “Unlocking Hope,” has been made over the course of ten years, and to this day, it stands as one of the most intimate confessionals I’ve ever produced. It is an on-going self-documentarian style of photographic work, complimented with excerpts of my spoken word poetry, and deep-seated writings, interwoven with selected self-portraiture. Throughout this project, I am also working with, and pairing imagery together as both diptychs and triptychs, both thematically and contextually. I am intrigued by how these working methods, both photographically and linguistically, allow for an alternative dialogue to unfold; one that differs from that of what the singular image can bring forth.
I have used photographic media to explore my relationship to my corporeal, my emotionality, and my innate sense of self, in coming to understand myself as a non-binary individual throughout my coming of age. My work invites the viewer toward a deep disclosure of emotional transparency, and a breadth of perseverance, through documentation of my lived experience. Turning the lens inward, I am able to hold space for myself; conveying my story of becoming, and the willingness to see, and accept myself, as I am. This work is titled “Unlocking Hope,” for a reason, and that’s simply because, hope whispers, “You are a light in a dark room.” www.jesseryancrosbyphotography.com

Caleb Cole

Caleb Cole

Dana Stirling

My work addresses the opportunities and difficulties of queer belonging, as well as aims to be a link in the creation of that tradition, no matter how fragile or ephemeral or impossible its connections. Recontextualizing and transforming secondhand objects (such as clothing, blankets, dolls, and found photographs) as well as popular media connects with a queer tradition of refashioning a world that was not made for us, refusing given meanings in favor of ones that more closely align with our lived experiences. The search for these items is a kind of cruising, that desire itself entwined with the resulting work, and taking objects home to tend to them is an expression of extended witnessing and devotion.

Using methods such as collage, assemblage, photography, and video, I bring images and objects together for chance encounters, deliberately placing materials from different time periods into conversation with one another, as a means of thinking about a lineage of queer culture while resisting a singular progressive genealogy. My work acknowledges the impossibility and undesirability of returning to the past, and instead experiences the act of looking backward as a way to imagine beyond the present to new queer futures. www.calebxcole.com

Alayna N Pernell

Alayna N Pernell

Dana Stirling

My practice considers the gravity of the mental wellbeing of Black people in relation to the spaces we inhabit, whether physically or metaphorically. In my interdisciplinary practice, I examine the harsh realities and complexities of being a Black American. As a product of Alabama, it was evident that the color of my skin alone was more offensive than any words I could say. The very possession of my Black body alone served to be quite traumatic. It shaped the person who I am today. It wasn’t until I reached adolescence, that I realized that I was far from being alone. There is a wear and tear on the Black body as a result of stress due to constant exposure to racism, sexism, and classism. This weathering affects generations, not individuals. Photography is often used as a tool to silence or mischaracterize marginalized people. This is why it is important to me in my photographic practice to consider the realities of others with compassion and respect. In each body of work I create, I attempt to create a space for healthy dialogue to occur.

Currently, my practice is revolving around two questions: 1) What can visual art tell us about the depiction of Black women throughout history, and 2) How have those negative depictions of Black women resulted in our lack of mental and physical care? I have spent months researching and uncovering suppressed images of Black women held in photographic collections at the Art Institute of Chicago. The images I have found and researched thus far depict the exploitation and violence towards Black women. In my practice, I have excavated, re-photographed, re-captioned, and re-contextualized the original works. By engaging with these images with the intervention of my hands and my body, I attempt to rescue and protect Black women’s bodies and their humanity, and also unearth their stories so that they can be seen and heard. With my ongoing body of work entitled Our Mothers’ Gardens, I beg for more than the visibility of Black women in institutional collections and hopeful reparations. I also desire for the issue around institutions holding and silencing collections of visible and (in)visible violent visual depictions of Black women to be further highlighted and appropriately corrected.

Early in my research, a part of my work critiqued Peter J. Cohen’s collection focusing on why he was listed as the photographer and owner of specific works held at the Art Institute of Chicago. After communicating with him personally and advocating for the change of ownership at the AIC, I was given permission to restore the images back to their original owners. I am in a unique position in my practice where I am beginning restorative photographic justice work. I was sent 20 images from his personal collection in order to research and analyze the images with the information provided on the back of the images. While I am documenting my restorative justice work, I am also showing that restitution is possible and vital, especially in communities of color. www.alaynanpernell.com

Karen Rothdeutsch

Karen Rothdeutsch

Dana Stirling

Here and Now | Growing old is something that I’ve always thought about with trepidation. The future is intimidating, the thought of the uncertain journey that lies ahead is unsettling. I often find myself reminiscing about my past to distract myself from thinking of what the future may hold. I am afraid of the loss that comes with the progression of time; the loss of my most treasured memories, and of my loved ones.

Here and Now is my personal exploration into the relationship between memories and the aging process. I have been making connections with individuals who are generations older than I am, and discovering how they appreciate the memories they have made in their lives without dwelling on the past in a way that prevents them from truly living in the present. This is my attempt at understanding the roots of my fears related to aging, so that I may begin to overcome them. karenrothdeutsch.myportfolio.com

Kristoffer Johnson

Kristoffer Johnson

Dana Stirling

To Which We Return | To Which We Return focuses on the impermanence and fragility of the human body and the physiological problems that are inherent in existence. The human body is a fragile construct that ages and decays. The Buddhist concept of impermanence states, everything is temporary and subject to rise and fall. Mortality is an unavoidable and inevitable fact that humanity must face despite the sense of control which society and self-awareness give us. Reflection on death is a shared concept throughout human history. This work draws from two such traditions, the Buddhist meditation Maranasati "mindfulness of death" and the Western visual tradition of Memento Mori "remember that you must die."

Maranasati invites one to visualize and contemplate their body in a state of decay. In this series, I use an alternative photographic process known as Mordançage to externalize this visualization. Photography has long been associated with memory and the desire to immortalize past moments and serves as constant reminders of time and mortality. Whereas the goal of most photography is the preservation of self and memory, in this work, the fragmented image serves as a reminder of the ever-present specter of the end of the life we know.

The mordançage process degrades and disrupts photographic materials through a chemical process of decay and destruction. The cracked surfaces and emulsion veils, weighted down by gravity, visually reference collapse and entropy and reflect the material conditions of the human body. The figure's skin pulls away, merging with the background, breaking down the barrier between body and space. The forms, textures, and colors of the images simultaneously reference geological formations and flesh, tying the body to the world in which it exists and to which it shall return. www.kristofferjohnsonfoto.com

Victoria Kosel

Victoria Kosel

Dana Stirling

Woven Topographics | Inspired by the imagery of the 1975 New Topographics exhibition, my Woven Topographics series plays with stark, yet fascinatingly beautiful industrial landscapes and explores their striking formal qualities through woven abstraction. Weaving together these compositionally similar locations creates a visual game of compare and contrast, challenging the viewer to decipher the environments for themselves.

Using black and white film, rather than color, removes excess distractions from the striking formal qualities of these locations - the shapes, lines, and space become central to the image. Previously minute features of the photographs are forced out of hiding once woven and framed by the opposing strips. The varying sizes of the woven strips results in yet another challenge as the viewer determines for themselves which image in each set is the most readable. The series presents itself as a visual puzzle as much as an examination of the landscapes presented. www.victoriakosel.com

Shabiha Jafri

Shabiha Jafri

Dana Stirling

My mother's death has left a growing absence in my home and in my heart. Her diagnosis of a grade III brain tumor destroyed her mind and body. Her presence still lingers in small pieces: her bed, her clothes, her photographs. I am desperately trying to latch onto all my memories of her, from the mother I grew up with to the woman who forgot who she was. I am afraid of her disappearing from my mind. This is my attempt to bring her presence back into my life before I forget her. www.shabihajafri.com