Anne Collier, Woman with a Camera (35 mm, diptych), 2009. Inkjet print, 20⅜ × 24 inches. Courtesy of the artist; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; Galerie Neu, Berlin; The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow; and Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles. © Anne Collier Approved for limited use.
Cincinnati, OH – FotoFocus is expanding its Second Century: Photography, Feminism, Politics symposium, taking place at Memorial Hall on Saturday, October 7, 2017. Tabitha Soren, a photographer who is featured in numerous publications such as The New Yorker and on the cover of New York Times Magazine, and Katy Grannan, whose photographs are included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art among others, will host a keynote conversation discussing their means and methods of representing American life through their work. Prior to the keynote, Aruna D’Souza, writer and critic, will offer a commentary on the intersection of feminism and other movements in relation to photography.
The comment and the keynote conversation will conclude the day-long symposium that addresses a range of topics revolving around feminist approaches to photography and lens-based art in today’s socio-political climate.
“We are pleased to add not one but three distinguished speakers, each bringing a distinct perspective and voice to the day’s conversation,” says Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator. “The reality is, women’s views of the world are varied, as are their approaches to representing the world through photography.”
Free and open to the public, the symposium begins at 10 a.m. and will include panel discussions and speakers throughout the day. It is designed to be flexible, allowing people to attend all day or the panel of their choice. More information and the full schedule can be found at FotoFocusSymposium.org.
Second Century: Photography, Feminism, Politics
Added Schedule of Events – October 7, 2017
3:00pm Comment by Aruna D’Souza Photography in an Intersectional Field
What does it mean to make images post-Ferguson, post-Black Lives Matter, post-Standing Rock, post-Trump, post-pussy hats, post-bathroom bills? This talk will explore ideas of how feminism—in no small part thanks to photography—has not just expanded to embrace other struggles, but has in fact intersected with, and become infinitely more urgent and complicated because of them.
Aruna D’Souza is a writer and critic based in western Massachusetts. Her essays on art, cultural politics, museums, and feminism have appeared in Art News, the Wall Street Journal, Momus, Bookforum, and Art in America. She is a regular contributor and serves on the editorial advisory board of the online criticism journal 4Columns. In 2016-17, she consulted for the Whitney Museum on questions of structural bias and antiracist practices.
4:45pm Remarks: Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator
5:00pm Keynote Conversation with Tabitha Soren and Katy Grannan: Shooting America
Both San Francisco-based artists working in photography, Tabitha Soren and Katy Grannan will discuss their means and methods of representing American life, from the heroic efforts (and failures) of baseball stardom to the shambling lives of the dispossessed who struggle to conjure a glimmering dream, and just to get by.
Tabitha Soren left a career in television in 1999 to start another as an artist. Her work has been widely exhibited across the United States including this year in Boston, New York, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and currently in San Francisco City Hall. Public collections include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Oakland Museum of Art, Transformer Station, Pier 24 Photography, New Orleans Museum of Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Her first monograph, Fantasy Life, was published by Aperture Books in April 2017. In addition to The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, her photography has been featured in Vanity Fair, the Paris Review, New York Review of Books, New York Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and California Sunday Magazine, among others. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area.
Katy Grannan was first recognized for an intimate series of portraits depicting strangers she met through newspaper advertisements. Since moving to California in 2006, Grannan has explored the relationship between aspiration and delusion—where our shared desire to be of worth confronts the uneasy prospect of anonymity. Together, Boulevard and The Ninety Nine unfold as a danse macabre of society’s liminal and ignored—the “anonymous”. The Nine, Grannan’s first feature film, is an intimate, at times disturbing, view into an America most would rather ignore. Raw, poetic, direct, and unnerving, the film is less a window into a foreign world than a distorted mirror reflecting our own, shared existence. Grannan’s photographs are included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among many others. She’s also a long-time contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and many other important publications. Grannan received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. There are five monographs of her work: Model American, The Westerns, Boulevard, The Nine, and The Ninety Nine.
For the full schedule and the most up to date information visit FotoFocusSymposium.org. Engage with FotoFocus on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
About FotoFocus
Founded in 2010, FotoFocus is the largest, Cincinnati-based non-profit arts organization whose mission is to present the finest in contemporary photography and lens-based art. FotoFocus supports and curates artistically, intellectually, and academically rigorous exhibitions and programs that are accessible, educational, and enriching to a diverse public. The organization celebrates and champions photography as the medium of our time and aims to encourage dialogue about the world through the art of photography. Programming includes the FotoFocus Biennials, the Lecture and Visiting Artist Series, a series that has invited more than 35 internationally-renowned photographers to Cincinnati. Since its inception, FotoFocus has presented more than 300 projects, worked with over 100 partners and provided support and funding to over 150 programs. More information about FotoFocus can be found at www.FotoFocusCincinnati.org.
Media Contact
For further information, images or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Annie Beard
O’Keeffe PR
annie@okeeffepr.com
513-410-3148
Megan Smale
O’Keeffe PR
megan@okeeffepr.com
513-221-1526
Press Release as a PDF: FotoFocus Expands Second Century: Photography, Feminism, Politics Symposium—Katy Grannan, Tabitha Soren, and Aruna D’Souza complete the lineup of featured speakers