F295 is proud to welcome the following featured speakers to Pittsburgh for the 5th F295 Symposium!
Wayne Martin Belger
Tuscon, AZ USA
boyofblue.com
Born February 11, 1964 in Pasadena California to two very understanding middle class Catholic parents, he remembers the days when mass was done in Latin. That magic language, magic practices, and magic altars with their own ritualistic traditions were intriguing to me at five years old years old. Not knowing Latin, he relied more on visuals to receive the communication. The priest used beautiful sacred tools and potions that were subject-created to bring me into communion with the subject he was presenting.
The tools he creates and works with are subject-created pinhole cameras. All of the cameras are designed to be the sacred bridge of a communion offering between the subject and myself, a process designed to remove the barrier between photographer, tool, and subject. A system created to witness and discover the beauty and horrors of creation, and the horrors and beauty of decay, presented by the author of light and time.
Stephen Berkman
Los Angeles, CA USA
stephenberkman.com
Berkman’s installation work explores the era of pre-chemical photography both literally and philosophically. While his constructions encompass optical projections and sculptural re-interpretations of the camera obscura, his body of work as a whole examines the intrinsic nature of photography during this nascent period when it was possible to create fleeting images, but impossible to fix them into permanent photographs. This search to rediscover the ephemeral nature of pre-photographic history, the scientific interplay of light and optics, and the quest for optical amusements, also known as philosophical instruments are uniquely considered throughout Berkman’s work. A few of the installation projects that employ the camera obscura principle include “Surveillance Obscura”, “The Obscura Object”, “Quadrascope”, and “Looking Glass”, which is perhaps the worlds first transparent camera obscura. Considering the implications of this camera obscura, L.A. Times writer, Leah Ollman stated: “In a dark, curtained-off space in the center of the gallery stands one of the show’s most captivating works and one that reveals, with literal transparency, how the medium of photography itself blurs the boundaries between science, art and magic”
Stephen will be speaking at our event with the Carnegie Museum of Art Light, Time, & The Apparatus: From Pictorialism to 21st Century Photography
Martha Casanave
Monterrey, CA USA
marthacasanave.com
Martha Casanave graduated from the Monterey Institute of International Studies with a degree in Russian Language and Literature and began her working life as a translator in Washington, DC. She engaged in photography from early childhood, however, and later came back to the Monterey Peninsula, built up a portrait clientele, and began teaching photography, while continuing to pursue her personal work. She has been an exhibiting and working photographer and educator on the Monterey Peninsula for over thirty years.
Every year between 1984 and 1995, Casanave used her knowledge of Russian language and culture to take groups of American photographers to the Soviet Union/Russia, and made a number of trips on her own to work on photographic projects. She received travel grants from the Polaroid Corporation to make a series of pinhole photographs of Leningrad in winter.
She was awarded the Imogen Cunningham Photography Award for her portraiture (1979) and also was a 1989 recipient of the Koret Israel Prize. Her book Past Lives– Photographs by Martha Casanave was published by Godine in 1991. Her second book, Beware of Dog, was released by the Center for Photographic Art in 2002. Her most recent book (exclusively pinhole) called Explorations Along an Imaginary Coastline, was published by Hudson Hills Press in 2006.
Casanave’s photographs are included in many major collections, such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stanford Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the J. Paul Getty Museum , and the Graham Nash private collection.
Her pinhole work was featured in the October, 2004 issue of Black and White magazine. Her work has also been published numerous times in the Pinhole Journal. More recently (Winter, 2007) “Light Leaks, Low Fidelity Photography” published a cover article and interview on Casanave’s pinhole work, and the June, 2007 issue of “Photography” (Ukrainian edition, in Russian) included a comprehensive article on the history, science and current practice of pinhole photography, and prominently featured Casanave’s work, along with an in-depth interview. A feature interview appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of PhotoEd magazine (Canada)
Casanave teaches Beginning Photography, Portraiture, and Alternative Photographic Processes at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, and Monterey Peninsula College. She also teaches workshops and Master Classes nationally and internationally.
Martha will be speaking at our event with the Carnegie Museum of Art Light, Time, & The Apparatus: From Pictorialism to 21st Century Photography
Jonathan Kline
Bennington, VT USA
Jonathan Kline is a photographer working in both traditional and digital forms of imaging and time-based projects. This summer he had a solo exhibit of gold toned salt prints at Fotosphere Gallery in Tokyo. He has had recent residencies at the Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, Anderson Ranch in Colorado, and Baja California, Mexico. In 2006 he received a fellowship from the American Scandinavian Foundation for work in the Norwegian Arctic, and has also received an Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant, and an Earthwatch Fellowship in Hungary. His work is in the collections of the Art Museum at Princeton University, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the National Park Service, Ellis Island, among others. He has been a member of the faculty at the Department of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, since 1986, and has also taught at the International Center of Photography, New York. BFA, San Francisco Art Institute, MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has taught at Bennington since 1998.
Jonathan will be speaking on: Ecliptics/2001-2007
John Metoyer
Chicago, IL USA
johnmetoyer.com
John H. Metoyer is a photographer and poet, living and working in Chicago, IL, where he is a tenured professor of art and English and the Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Harold Washington College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. His photographic work can be found in public and private collections internationally and is the subject of the 21st Editions monograph Blood Migration. John’s work has also been featured in The Photographic Arts by John Wood, Photography’s Antiquarian Avante Garde by Lyle Rexer, Strange Genius: The Journal of Contemporary Photography Volumes V & VI.
John will be speaking on: Synthesizing Centuries
Beverly Rayner
Santa Cruz, CA USA
beverlyrayner.com
Beverly Rayner has been making her diverse photographic mixed media artworks for nearly 30 years. Rayner holds a BFA in sculpture and an MFA in photography, and teaches workshops and college courses in photographic and mixed media art. She has been represented by Braunstein/Quay Gallery in San Francisco and G. Gibson Gallery in Seattle for many years and has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries in the US and abroad. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Oakland Museum of California; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; San Jose Museum of Art; and the Berkeley Art Museum. She is a recipient of the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship, and is currently the 2012 Frances Neiderer Artist in Residence at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA.
Beverly will be speaking on Mixing Things Up: Image-Object Hybrids
Jeremy Rowe
Phoenix, AZ USA
vintagephoto.com
Dr. Jeremy Rowe has collected, researched, and written about 19th and early 20th century photographs for over twenty-five years. He has written Arizona Photographers 1850 – 1920: A History and Directory, Arizona Real Photo Postcards: A History and Portfolio, and Early Maricopa County 1871-1920, as well as numerous articles on photographic history including Disclosing Historic Photographs in the Handbook of Visual Research Methods. He curated exhibitions with many regional museums, and a permanent exhibit at the Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jeremy serves on several boards, including the Daguerreian Society, Art Intersection in Gilbert, Arizona, and INFOCUS (the collaboration between the Phoenix Art Museum and center for Creative Photography). He served as Arizona coordinator for the Library of Congress American Memory project, and has worked on other digital collections projects including an NSF funded 3D modeling and visualization Digital Library project, Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence. He was theDirector of Research Strategic Planning and Policy for Information Technology at Arizona State University, co-Director of the Decision Theater, and Executive Director of the School of Computing and Informatics. He is now emeritus faculty, and refocusing his efforts on his passion for photographic history.
Jeremy will be speaking with Jerry Spagnoli at this years opening reception discussion Thursday night June 7. They’ll be discussing: Visual Literacy, Metaphor, and Method: The Subconscious of Culture
Josephine Sacabo
New Orleans, LA USA
josephinesacabo.com
Joséphine Sacabo lives and works mostly in New Orleans, where she has been strongly influenced by the unique ambience of the city. She is a native of Laredo, Texas, and was educated at Bard College, New York. Previous to coming to New Orleans, she lived and worked extensively in France and England. Her earlier work was in the photo-journalisitic tradition, influenced by Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. She now works in a very subjective, introspective style. She uses poetry as the genesis of her work and lists poets as her most important influences, among them Rilke, Baudelaire, Pedro Salinas, Vincente Huiobro, and Juan Rulfo, Mallarmé, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
Her work has been seen in one-person exhibitions in Paris, London, Madrid, Toulouse, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major U.S. cities. Her work has also been widely published in magazines in the United States and Europe.
In 2005 – 2006 there were major exhibits of her work in New Orleans at A Gallery For Fine Photography and at the John Stevenson Gallery in New York City. In 2007 her new work was exhibited at Center For Fine Photography where she was awarded the Director’s Choice prize. In 2008 she had one woman shows at BMG Gallery in Woodstock, NY, Verve Fine Arts in Santa Fe,
A Gallery For Fine Photography in New Orleans, Gallery 291 in San Francisco and The Hallmark Museum Of Contemporary Photography in Mass. In 2010 her portfoilio “Óyeme Con Los Ojos” based on the life and poetry of the Mexican 17th century nun Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz, was the signature exhibit of both Fotoseptiembre and the Mexican Bicentennial celebrations at the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio Texas. It was also exhibited in the Laredo Cultural Arts Center in Laredo Texas and the Galeria Pérgola in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
In 2011 there will be a retrospective of her work from 1970 to the present at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, a solo exhibit at A Gallery For Fine Photography, and a solo exhibit at Verve Fine Arts in Santa Fé, .Her images will also be included in a group show of gallery artists at Susan Maasch Fine Arts. Portfolios of her work have recently appeared in The London Sunday Times Magazine Camera Arts, B&W Magazine, Rangefinder Magazine and ZOOM among others.
She has had four books of her work published: Une Femme Habitée in Paris in 1991 by Editions Marval, award winning Pedro Paramo in 2002 by the Univ. of Texas Press , Cante Jondo in 2002 by 21st Publishing and Duino Elegie in 2005 also by 21st Publishing.
She is represented by Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, A Gallery For Fine Photography in New Orleans, John Stevenson Gallery in New York, Stephen L. Clark Gallery in Austin and Verve Fine Arts Gallery in Santa Fé and Susan Maasch Fine Arts in Portland Maine.
Her work has been collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art – N.Y., The Museum of Modern Art – N.Y., The Art Institute of Chicago, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The Smithsonian – Washington D.C., The Library of Congress, The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Wittliff Collection - Austin, The Bibliothèque Nationale – Paris, and La Maison de la Photo – Paris, among others.
Joséphine Sacabo has taught highly acclaimed workshops at the Center for Photography at Woodstock ,the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles – France ,at the Santa Fé Workshops and in New Orleans for The New Orleans Workshops. Her work is characterized by highly subjective, introspective images that hover between reality and dream, often inspired by literary texts.
Josephine will be speaking on You Are Now.
Norm Sarachek
Allentown, PA USA
nsarachek.com
Sarachek’s first formal exposure to photography over twenty years ago at the Main Photo Workshops was a life changing experience. Driving home to Pennsylvania the yellow signs were white, the red barns black, thoughts about composition were always present. Photography quickly became a path to personal expression. Having studied with social documentary photographers Larry Fink, Costa Manos, and others, he began his photographic career documenting the connections and expressions of people at public places like carnivals, bars and gardens. However, after ten years Sarachek sought to express himself more personally through photography.
This search led to his present work with Chemigrams, a process first described in 1956 by Belgian artist Pierre Cordier. With no camera or scene to document, it is a painterly approach to using photographic materials, so it seems natural that painters like Marden, Serra, and Pollock, as well as Sumi-e ink painters and calligraphers became Sarachek’s main sources of inspiration.
He has had solo shows at the New England School of Photography, Boston, MA, Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, VT, the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, Martin Gallery, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, and numerous other galleries in the United States and England.
His work has been published in Robert Hirsch’s textbook “Photographic Possibilities,” and Christina Z. Anderson’s “The Experimental Photography Workbook,” and will be included in Hong Kong artist Dominic Lam’s forthcoming book on Chemigrams.
Sarachek’s work is in the Permanent Print Collection of the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY, New Paltz, NY; Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, Haverford, PA; The Museum of Anthropology, California State University, Chico, CA; and private collections throughout the United States and in Australia.
Martha will be speaking at our event with the Carnegie Museum of Art Light, Time, & The Apparatus: From Pictorialism to 21st Century Photography
Jerry Spagnoli
New York, NY USA
jerryspagnoli.com
Jerry Spagnoli lives and works in New York City.
He is currently working on several projects including two ongoing historical documentation series, “Local
Stories” and “The Last Great Daguerreian Survey of the Twentieth Century”. The common thread among all his projects is the exploration of the interplay between information and knowledge. Taking the camera and photosensitive materials as the traditional standard for objectivity Spagnoli explores the ways that
subjectivity is the inevitable basis of all knowledge.
A monograph of his work, titled Daguerreotypes was published by Steidl in 2006, and his next book American Dreaming will be published in 2012. His collaborations with Chuck Close have resulted in two monographs, A Couple of Ways of Doing
Something, published by Aperture and Daguerreotypes published by Gabrius.
His work has appeared in many books and publications, among them are Watching the World Change, by David Friend, Photography’s Antiquarian Avant Garde by Lyle Rexer, 21st: A Journal of Contemporary Photography Volume VI: Flesh and Spirit, Vanity Fair, DoubleTake Magazine, Adbusters, Metropolis and Graphis.
His work is held in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The National Portrait Gallery, The Fogg Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Chrystler Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The High Museum, The New York Historical Society and other major collections.
Jerry will be speaking with Jeremy Rowe at this years opening reception discussion, Thursday June 7. They’ll be discussing: Visual Literacy, Metaphor, and Method: The Subconscious of Culture
Anna Strickland
nextduchamp.com
Anna Strickland is an installation artist who has taught in the Photography Department at Rhode Island School of Design for over 25 years. She is most passionate about, and an expert in, antique photographic processes. Her installation work is exhibited both nationally and internationally. In April 2012 her installation “Given” will be at Tilt Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona. In 2011 she was included in a group exhibition in Houston, TX called “Evolutionaries: Art and Healing” and was invited to collaborate with poet Elisabeth Benjamin as part of the Belfast Poetry Festival, Belfast, ME. Her most recent international exhibit was “The Ladder Series” at Galerie Spéos, Paris, France in 2010. Her work can be found in private and public collections both in the USA and Europe. She has an MFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has received grants from both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Pollack Krasner Foundation. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and had a residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado.
Anna will be speaking on The Legacy.
Sue Abramson
Pittsburgh, PA USA
sueabramson.com
Sue Abramson is an Associate Professor of photography at Pittsburgh Filmmakers where she has been teaching for twenty-four years. Most of her work focuses on garden and botanical imagery that references living and working through life and loss. Abramson has shown her work nationally and regionally including exhibitions at the Houston Center for Photography, the Visual Studies Workshop and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Her photographs have been published in Extended Frames, Pittsburgh Revealed: Photographs Since 1850 and in the Pinhole Journal. Abramson’s work is in numerous collections including the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Allentown Art Museum.
Sue will be speaking on Emotional Relocation.
David Emitt Adams
Tempe, AZ USA
David Adams is a photographer based in Tempe, Arizona where he is currently in his last semester of the Master of Fine Arts program at Arizona State University. He earned his Bachelors of Fine Art degree from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. David is gaining national and international attention as an artist, whose current practice engages historical media. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including established institutions such as the SOHO Photo Gallery in New York City and The Studio in London, England. David was selected for the prestigious Lens Culture International Exposure Award 2011 and most recently, was awarded the Freestyle Crystal Apple Award for Outstanding Achievement in Black and White Photography. Within the last year, David was awarded the Nathan Cummings Foundation $5000 travel grant that funded a trip to France and England. This opportunity enabled him to investigate the resurgence of antiquated processes at its source and their application in contemporary photography. His intentions are not to mimic historic processes, but to use them in an informed contemporary dialogue about photography’s past and present.
David will be speaking on Conversations with History.
Anne Arden McDonald
New York, NY USA
anneardenmcdonald.com
Anne Arden McDonald was born in London England and grew up in Atlanta Georgia. From age 15 to 30 she made photographic self portraits; building installations in the landscape or abandoned interiors and making private performances for her camera in these spaces. She published a book of this work in 2004. More recently she has been making process-inspired images and making site-specific installations which involve photography and sculpture. In the past 24 years, she has had 43 solo exhibitions in 10 countries (about 200 total shows in 14 countries) and has been published in over 215 places in 20 countries, including in Aperture Magazine. Her work is in the collections of 6 major museums. She also designs a line of jewelry, and teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York.
Anne will be speaking on Atom, Planet.