Ksenia Inverse

Behind the Bookshelves | Village libraries form a crucial part in the social structure of any village as well as their communal lifestyle. Reading is not the main cause for visiting; each library is a centre for education, cultural events and entertainment. The spaces are used for distributing news, celebrating anniversaries and social gatherings. Village libraries nourish patriotism in the youth besides preserving national traditions and historical knowledge.

Many of the libraries are managed by just one employee each, most of them being women. They are the ones in charge of decorating the spaces which is why each library possesses a unique interior.

Village libraries' book funds rarely receive contributions; some funds have but a few hundreds of books available. Mobile data and smartphones have driven the public interest towards digital resources which village libraries often don’t have access to. The librarians compensate for the decline of interest in printed editions and the infrequent donations to the funds with organising various events within the library spaces, such as celebrations of renowned writers and poets' anniversaries, lectures on local history, open gatherings for children and adults, numerous workshops and quizzes. ksenia-inverse.com

Ruotong Guan

Falling. Slowly. but, | My photography practice explores the relationships between my family and me, the living space we share, and the idea of home. When making projects, I look to my own family history through different identities: as a daughter, a granddaughter, and an independent individual. With photography, I present my self growth while visualizing the intangible emotions.

The project “Falling. Slowly. but,” is a series of photographs made in my grandparents’ house, which they have been living in for over thirty years but is now on the governmental demolition list. The conflict between the natural aging and the brutal demolition is presented subtly through photographs. I make portraits of my grandparents and their home, and when I recreate the house with images, from one window to another, from the balcony to the bedroom, my memory is the thread to tie pieces together. In this process, I see my own presence, and it is my protest against forgetting. ruotongguanphoto.com

Michael Young

Hidden Glances | Hidden Glances is a series of photographs made from vintage gay pornography calendars published when I was beginning to recognize my sexuality as a youth until I came out in 2000. Before then, I skirted mention of my sexuality by hiding behind my studies, feigning interest in girls, and making failed attempts to fit in with the rest of the boys.

Calendars chronicle and mark time. In this work, they represent the long period in my life when others assumed I was straight, or I was told that being gay was wrong. Ironically, the men in these calendars portray sexualized heterosexual archetypes that many in the gay community have appropriated. These "manly" men that society was trying to train me to become ultimately became the men I longed to look at and galvanized my true identity.

Each image is made by hand cutting a figure from his scene, layering him over another month’s image, and then re-photographing the new composition. By eliminating the presence of exposed skin in the top layer, one muscular silhouette becomes a window that both reveals and conceals to create tension between the two layers. Ultimately through the lack of depth, I am creating visual compressions of all those years when I wanted to look at other guys and could only risk taking quick glimpses because I was afraid that my gaze would linger too long and expose my homosexuality. www.mjyoungphoto.com

Troy Williams

I’ve been photographing off and on for about 20 years. My interest was to make images that evoked memories of moments lived and moments imagined. Theatrical and cinematic representations of life in my rearview mirror. Moments of adolescent mysticism and teenage heroics. As time went on, these vivid and fantastical representations that had stirred my imagination started to give way to the necessary need to move forward. To start existing in the present. For many years it was a confusing and disappointing task of trial and error. I made countless images that tried to hold onto the parts of me that I begrudgingly didn’t want to let go of. I was changing but I didn’t know what I was changing into. Then came the pandemic. And as we all know, became a time of deep reflection. The necessity to be alone in order to protect ourselves and our community became the catalyst for who I was becoming. And once the lockdown started to recede, I headed out to the streets to begin to live my new life.

Portraits can be deeply moving. The connection between the subject, the photographer and the audience, in my belief, creates a community. It has the ability to bring forth the interiority of our desires, our faith, our aspirations, our apprehensions, our truth. It is this profound power that portraits have that brought me to my current version of myself. I want to experience our self expression intimately. And in the moment, as we live and breathe. And just as important as my need to connect, I make these street portraits as a way to honor and pay attention to the everyday people that I lovingly cross paths with. We are strong, resilient, creative and healing beings that have the power to lift each other up. We inspire when we live out loud with enthusiasm and compassion. Our surface shows so much of our spirit. A photograph is a beautiful vehicle between one soul to another. It is a gift. www.troywilliams.love

Aurelia Wrenn

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

Daniel Keys

Concurrence | Concurrence is an ongoing series of portraits of the people around me. I decided to take portraits of my friends and family as a way of pinning down each person at that time in our lives, offering a view of that person and their circumstances. Living in London I have always found the cities multiculturalism reflected in my many connections with people from not only different countries but also varied economic backgrounds.

I was originally prompted by the UK’s controversial decision to leave the European Union, a selfish fear that the group of contacts I had surrounded myself with may be forced to leave. Many of those people had a sense of disappointment with the country they had decided to call home, even prompting some to leave of their own volition.

Each image is the outcome of a private interview/conversation between the sitter and myself and is a personal rumination of the coincidental nature of friendships and acknowledgment that the circumstances that bind people together are in a constant state of flux.

When photographing the portraits, I have endeavored to remove the presence of the camera as much as possible. I attained this by lining up the shot and focusing beforehand, using a cable release, and only occasionally checking the camera. Being able to engage my sitter in real conversation and pressing the shutter instinctually as and when it felt right to do so.

I decided to use the sitter’s bedrooms to frame the images as it facilitates the visual narrative, giving context to the sitter’s circumstances, fleshing out the subject to the audience whilst also providing a space for me to conduct the interviews. A safe space where the subjects feel comfortable, an intimate space. The interviews are not structured in a conventional sense and can flow, taking the route they wish, allowing the sitter to control the dialogue somewhat. Topics have ranged from childhood, relationships, hopes, fears, aspirations, and regrets. www.daniel-keys.co.uk

Jessica Swank

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

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

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

Nikos Priporas

Souvenirs | These photographs, under the title ‘Souvenirs’, describe a highly conservative Greek reality, which claims that the adhesion to an unskilled reproduction of ancient symbols along with the adoption of false mimic images of the Western civilization, add to the self-sufficiency and the prestige that it seems to seek.

Throughout these reconstructions which mime ancient monuments and statues, one can witness the marching of representations of popular emblems, as well as symbols that, due to the recent political developments regarding the name of North Macedonia., became objects of quarrel. In these images, surrounded by square frames and despite their strictness, one can witness the playful, even ironic, mood of the photographer.

The invocation of the past, the oblique westward gaze and the emphasis on the religious element are the triptych, which runs a large part of the disoriented Greek society. The hyperbole in their use, certainly invokes beliefs and arbitrary, often contradictory, adopted identities. Everything fits but nothing matches. This series reaches the lines of political photography as it records and gleans that which long to be, through the use of symbols, the public image of the modern Greek and how he coexists with the public space. It is the image that he, himself constructs by using old and light-reflecting stereotypes which he estimates that they emulate the splendor of a long-gone civilization as a deficiency for the creation of a new one. Aleka Tsironi https://priporasnikos.wixsite.com/nikospriporas

Toi Ramey

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

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.

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

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, 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

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

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

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

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

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