Artist Statements

Ally Christmas Artist Statement:

/bodycrumbs began as a meandering, labyrinthine exploration of internal selfhood – questioning what it means to be, and tracing how all the intersecting, overlapping, conflicting parts of myself coexist together. More recently, the imagery and motivation behind the work have morphed towards a more uncomfortable exploration of external (m)otherhood – questioning who I am through the eyes of others and how I extend or project myself outwards now that I am a mother. This project has been a multi-year labor of love, and ‘labor’ is a key term I hope to unpack in this work; how can traditional forms of domestic labor (like sewing, weaving, mending, quilting) become vehicles for conveying meaning about embodiment and selfhood? While creating the work shared in this space, the ritualistic processes of image and object construction have invoked both a productive form of spiritual contemplation and a (perhaps) counter-productive remove from reality (read: repression, avoidance, *anxiously laughing emoji goes here*).

Julianne Clark Artist Statement:

I create stories about identity and the American landscape as a queer Oklahoman, destabilizing the traditionally masculine framework of landscape imagery. I envision worlds with more beauty and care, while acknowledging human’s future in the fossil record. I make connections between memory and the landscape. Both change over time - fading, transforming. Some traces are concrete; they can be proven. Others are ephemeral and mystical. Using both the past and present, real and fabricated, I invoke comparisons between people and nature, life and decay, creation and destruction. I represent both shared and individual dreams and memories. Interstitial zones between natural, industrial, and domestic are stages for incantation to call forth these visions. On a broad scale, my work asks the viewer to consider how degradation of the land relates to erosion of family and community.

Daniel Cosentino Artist Statement:

My work explores latent images and the unknown, focusing on how connections to land, history, and materiality shape shifting narratives. Through sculpture and photography, I investigate the relationships between natural and constructed environments, uncovering the layers of meaning they hold.

Stairs to Nowhere captures a moment of necessity and reflection. Built during the pandemic on my family homestead in Lincoln Park, NJ, the staircase, constructed from repurposed pallet wood, bridges the human and natural world as it descends into a forest ravine overlooking Great Piece Meadows. Functioning as both a pathway and a symbol of resilience, it holds traces of its origins—oxygen canisters used in medical facilities—and transforms them into a shared space of connection. The accompanying photograph, developed on-site using analog processes, documents this temporal and physical intersection of utility and memory.

Totem Domum originates from the remnant of a dead tree, prepared and gilded with gold. The work illuminates a place of passage, connecting the natural world to human intervention. By using the organic form of the tree and the process of gilding, the piece creates a statement of finding within a wilderness. It suggests a narrative of renewal and discovery tied to the histories embedded in place.

Cedars of Lebanon is a photograph from the original homestead of Frederick Law Olmsted on Staten Island, NYC. I became observant of “cedars” in culture and their presence in literature, the humanities, and the arts. This led me to take pilgrimages, seeking specific sites of representation. I found these in relative obscurity, often hidden in plain sight. This work ties Olmsted’s connection to the earth and built environments to the idea of the latent image, where meanings buried within the land and its history emerge through observation and representation.

Together, these works examine how environments, materials, and histories are shaped by time, intervention, and context. By focusing on the latent and the overlooked, I aim to uncover narratives that shift and transform, much like the places and histories they inhabit.

Ashley Czajkowski Artist Statement: 

I live in the desert. A place where the plants and animals, the very landscape and weather seem to reject human existence. And yet we prevail. We are here. We have taken over and made it ours. We are adaptable creatures. Scavengers, survivalists, opportunists. Vermin who cannot be eradicated. We are what we despise in other beings. We are coyotes.

For Anamorphosis, I wanted to explore the symbol of the coyote as a mirror image of ourselves. I chose to incorporate the use of the wildlife trail camera as a tool to question the power dynamics of one-way observation. What are we taking when we secretly capture an animal’s image in the wild? What happens when we reflect that image back at us? This work is meant to merge, reverse and transform the roles of the human gaze and the animal other.

Gina Dabrowski Artist Statement:

In my art practice, I use photography to explore issues around class, gender, and social space. My artwork is informed by my experiences growing up working class, in a family of strong, hard working matriarchs. 

From 2007 to present, I have created photographic portraits at women-only music festivals throughout the US. As a “Festy” goer I feel at home on “The Land” in the fellowship of women ranging from grandmothers to infants, and reflecting a diversity of races, ethnicities and social classes. 

My project started at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (MichFest), until their policy regarding the status of transgender women eventually led to the gates closing in 2015. I continued photographing at Savannah Moon in Lake Pepin Wisconsin, the Ohio Lesbian Festival outside of Columbus, the Virginia Women’s Music Festival near Richmond, and the National Women’s Music Festival in Madison, Wisconsin. 

For this project, I use large format and medium format film cameras, and battery-operated studio lights, which allow me to examine how these temporary spaces function within the larger landscape, and the manner in which women navigate the terrain of an exclusively female intentional community. Powerful strobe lights are needed to illuminate my subjects under the dimly lit canopy of trees or in their hotel rooms which replaced tents at the National event. My technical expertise in studio lighting, as well as the ability of large format film cameras to capture the details in the frame, provide the viewer with a rich, three-dimensional quality.

Amanda Dahlgren Artist Statement:

This is 50 (plus)

The year I turned 50 was bookended by two significant, contrasting events. It started with an ambulance ride and overnight stay in the ER after passing out and having a massive anxiety attack. And ended with finally landing the dream job I had been working towards for 15 years. My 50s so far have been full of contradictions.

My hair is gray but it’s never looked better. I’m tech savvy even though I don’t understand the difference between a reel, post, and story. I’m more physically active than any time in my life, playing pickleball and doing pilates. I’m a bass-player who goes to the chiropractor regularly for neck and back issues. Alcohol, a vice that used to make me feel like the life of the party, just brings panic attacks. My metabolism suddenly sucks, but my doctor says I’m quite healthy thanks to pharmaceuticals and supplements. And I’m starting to fear that my tattoo and face piercings look less badass and more try-hard.

I’m lucky to be alive and thriving, feeling accomplished, creative, and capable. And? I’m just fucking old.

Caity Fares Artist Statement:

I am interested in the notion that the landscape art being made today is perhaps some of the last that will showcase images of a habitable earth. I use delicately toned rice paper, antiquated frames, and photographs of natural environments to communicate the sorrow and reverence I feel when bearing witness to a beautiful yet changing planet. Being in nature is both revitalizing and haunting for me, much in the same way as recalling memories of departed loved ones. My work ultimately explores the melancholy passage of time, the irrefutable nature of climate change, and the fragile animacy of the environment. 

Suzanne Gainer Artist Statement:

My work ranges in theme from formal explorations of spaces and objects, to feminist considerations of the body and the natural world. My practice utilizes photography, digital image manipulation, video, self-portraiture, and a variety of printing methods. The images I have selected for submission to the combined caucus exhibition are three pieces from my most recent body of work, Every Woman and Nobody. It is a careful grouping of singular images and diptychs in which I rely on my own body as the site of inquiry. Not simply my story, Every Woman and Nobody is about the ways in which inescapable sexual advances, harassment and violence imprint on our bodies.

Throughout the series, I use the symbolic language of feathers, open sky, and domestic spaces to indicate the desire to break free from emotional and psychological bondage. Clouds, contrails, and water represent that which cannot be understood or grasped. Medical records from my adolescence refer to what is true and known. Part memoir and part metaphor, the work comes from the expression of elusive traumatic memory, and from an indescribable internal space. While my work is undoubtedly personal, I intend that my body is read as a stand-in for the nearly universal experience of being a woman.

Abbey Hepner Artist Statement:

Uranium disposal cells are geometric mounds engineered to isolate radioactive material from the surrounding environment. The mounds sit above the ground and cover surfaces from a few acres to half a mile and consist of an outer shell of riprap rock and a clay soil layer that covers the radioactive material. They are designed to allow for rain runoff and to prevent plant growth from forming on top and penetrating the clay layer. Typically, the cells in the Southwest are made from demolished buildings at uranium mines, and the cells in the Midwest and East are most commonly from uranium metal engineering and processing sites.

Some sites that produced the waste contained in the cells date back to the Manhattan Project and were created to mine and construct nuclear weapons; some of the sites continue to operate today for the nuclear energy industry. The amount of radioactivity in the cells varies, but most radiation comes from Uranium-238 with a half-life as old as the earth or 4.47 billion years. There are over 100 sites like these that exist in the US and the number is growing.

Disposal cells are architecturally fascinating sites. They are often designed to blend in with the landscape, but their shapes form mounds on the earth, and their suture materials seldom remain as invisible as intended. They are otherworldly to see up close, but even more fascinating to see from an aerial view where their odd geometry takes shape. While some sites are constructed away from populated cities, others such as those in Weldon Spring, just outside St. Louis, Missouri, are difficult to ignore and function as recreational destinations.

Monument Plinth features aerial images from forty uranium disposal cells across the US. The images were collected with the assistance of Dr. Mark Finco and acquired by the National Agriculture Imagery Program. I printed and mounted each image on black acrylic and laser engraved the cell detail into the surface, reflecting an internal space or void.

Kayla Holdgreve Artist Statement:

To Touch the Dirt is a body of work that explores the connection between dirt and remembering. 

I think about the many stories I was told, while I watched the women in my family garden, about the lineage of plants in relation to our relatives. A way for me to remember these stories and to honor the women in my family, is to garden and touch the earth. I believe dirt holds memories, and to touch the dirt is to remember the memories of our families, our communities, and our earth.

Within this work, I use actual dirt to create prints from my family’s archive as well as using a historic photographic process, Cyanotype, which was used by famous botanist Anna Adkins to document flora and fauna. By using archival, non archival materials and repetition, I am speaking to the changes related to the action of recalling memories and retelling of stories.

Jonathan Lovett Artist Statement:

Off the beaten path, there is a flowering declares that queerness is everywhere. The natural world can feel to be a space of toxic masculinity, but it is very much the opposite. It is queer. The "natural" has long been used as an argument against queerness, yet this has no factual bases. Nature is a space of symbiosis, not dominance. This project speaks on my own relationship with nature, and how nature can be viewed through a queer lens. This includes how I use the body of my partner and my own body, and integrate the queer figure into the land. It also speaks on my mothers and how their relationship to nature differed greatly. My birth mother passed away when I was three, so this work is also a means of reconnecting with her. My birth mother had a deep connection with nature, while my mom who raised be was somewhat estranged from the natural world due to internalized homophobia, thinking queerness was something outside of the natural. This took years of unlearning and reconnecting with the world around me. There has been a lot of drawing inspiration from queer teachers as well, such as moss, fungi, and the Garibaldi. Photographing life within nature that is queer, fish that change gender through their life, moss with its alternative modes of kinship and reproduction, and fungi with its countless biological sexes. However, the most important part of this work is my relationship with my partner, Quinn. Creating a garden of Eden for the two of us to inhabit. It is impossible to speak on these issues without speaking about the queer history in natural spaces. Queer people have been cleansed from natural spaces for a long time. Parks and green space that were once queer refuge, have been “cleansed”. This project explored topics of adaptation in the sense that the natural world and queerness is in a constant state of evolution. One of the central ideas of queer ecological theory is adaptation.

Stephen Marc Artist Statement:

An American Journey Continues

As a documentary/street photographer and digital montage artist, my ongoing project explores American identity and sense of place with a focus on public space gatherings, from everyday rituals to special events where American character is revealed. How we shape our environment, define ourselves and recognize each other as Americans is racially and culturally diverse, socio-politically charged, historically layered, and constantly in flux. I’m searching for the ways we connect to place and interact with each other, while navigating the conundrums of coexistence.

As a black photographer, I felt that it was important during this transitionally complex and polarized time in this country to address who we are collectively as Americans. There have been other photographers who have created visual American surveys of America, most notably the seminal books of Walker Evans (American Photographs, 1938) and Robert Frank (The Americans, 1958). While often crossing the lines that divide this country, my work is an homage, update, and critical response to the seminal American documentary overviews, where I bring a different cultural background perspective.

As a photographer, I am interested in the photograph as an interpretative document; and as a digital montage artist, these “street story” montages explore the strategies and objectives for combining photographs to extend the visual narrative, bearing in mind the constructive nature of memory as an informed witness.

Yvette Marthell Artist Statement:

My work explores the intimate and intricate connections between bodily experiences and psychosocial dynamics, focusing on themes of identity, representation, and self. Through photography, video, and experimental printmaking, I aim to translate complex emotions into poetic visual narratives. Whether I am creating personal works or collaborating with others, my art engages in universal conversations about love, obsession, grief, feminism, and queer identity.

In my triptych titled "Acceptance," created in collaboration with Shoog McDaniel, I examine the transformative power of acceptance. Each image captures the resilience of the human spirit, celebrating the journey from struggle to self-discovery. This work reflects my commitment to presenting deeply personal yet universally resonant stories, utilizing direct and physical methods of production to embody the essence of transformation. Through this piece, I invite viewers into a shared space of reflection, empathy, and connection.

Noelle McCleaf Artist Statement:

Erma and Milly (2019-Present)

Erma and Milly examines the lives of two sisters, women from my family who came of age a century ago in the early 1900s. They spent their adult years together in a large two-story home in the rural railroad town of North Bend, Pennsylvania.

Erma and Milly defied the norms of the era and never married or had children.

From the Victorian era and into the early 20th century, it was common practice for women to participate in the collection and curation of images. Erma and Milly cultivated any ephemera that fancied them—from magazine clippings to photographs, letters, cards, pressed flowers, or locks of hair. They were also very creative, spending their time painting watercolors, sewing doll clothing, or making scrapbooks. Their assemblages were often included in elaborate albums, many which were passed down to my family.

Erma and Milly’s collections are evidence of their Victorian sensibilities, including their interest in romance. Boxes of handwritten letters, including some from gentleman callers are included in their belongings.

In researching, photographing, and contemplating Erma and Milly’s archives I reflect on similar life choices I’ve made over a century later. The conditions for women have improved drastically since the Victorian era, but women are still fighting for many basic human rights, such as inclusion in the U.S. Constitution.

“But this freedom is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare.”

--Professions for Women, from Killing the Angel in the House (1931), Virginia Woolf

Christopher Schneburger Artist Statement:

Christopher Schneberger - The Wanderers

“For me, childhood roaming was what developed self-reliance, a sense of direction and adventure, imagination, a will to explore, to be able to get a little lost and then figure the way back.” 

-Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Sometimes we find ourselves lost. Maybe we get lost on purpose. In the past few years I’ve had the feeling that I was lost. I felt very unsure of my choices, perhaps doubtful of the map I felt I had been following. I worried about whether I was too far astray of a path I had been following to ever find it again. It scared me.

I recalled that when I was young, I would set out into the woods, with no map at all, looking for new pathways, new adventure. I had the confidence that I would find my way – to return or go onward. My friends and I would occasionally plan expeditions, maybe “camping out” for the night. This would include packing of gear as if we were exploring a frontier. It might only be a nearby forest, but to us it was wilderness to be traversed and conquered. We wanted to be scouts, like Lewis and Clark, and enter a land with less guarantee of safety and more chance of discovery. Maybe we would find a new home in the wilds and never return to civilization.

This new series of semi-narrative tableaus imagines a band of young explorers traversing the land. These young women portray both the fantasy of those childhood expeditions and serve to illustrate the idea of getting lost, being lost, and finding one’s way. The land they roam is a non-specific midwestern farmscape, both wild and cultivated, seen in a half-light of evening or gathering storms. The relationships between these wanderers shifts with the landscape and is often deliberately ambiguous. I intend to depict them just on the edge of reality, verging slightly into the cinematic, so the viewer will indulge in the same idealistic vision.

Solnit goes on to say, “Getting lost like that seems like the beginning of finding your way or finding another way, though there are other ways of being lost.” This series is in some ways my own processing of being lost and finding my way, and gaining an appreciation of getting lost as a deliberate act.

Peg Shaw Artist Statement:

Sympnoia Panta Statement

Over 100 years ago someone patiently coated 4x5” pieces of glass with a light sensitive silver-based emulsion, making sure to protect them from light until the time and place was right. Afterwards they carried their large heavy camera around the countryside until stopping to set up, frame the image, load the glass plate, measure the light, and capture what intrigued them. One exposure, maybe two, being careful to get it right. At this point if all their work was done accurately, processing would result in a glass negative of highlights and shadows, dark trees resembling white trees. The image captured might be carefully printed to create a positive black and white print or stored away in the most archival way possible. The photograph would be cherished - framed, hung on the wall, shared with those close by. Flaws embraced, prints and negatives could be passed down to the next generation.

Today over three billion photographs are posted to the internet a day. These are images from all over the world, often taken with phones the size of a hand, captured with one touch, and shared with a click. For most of them the number of ‘likes’ may be the primary purpose, translated to mean approval in the simplest form. The upload may be the only storage, possibly ending up in a digital album on a distant server. These photos are rarely considered precious, often the true value is found in the relationship between sharing and viewing.

So, reaching back to appreciate the knowledge, craftsmanship, and effort contained in a single silver gelatin photograph, while also reaching out to embrace spontaneity, accessibility, and digital global sharing - is an opportunity to embrace this point, place, and intersection. We are here today - and made of history. We are the blue ocean and black and white tall sailing ships, gray trees and colored roots, a canyon and a rock. Silver and pixels, sympnoia panta - all things conspire.

Denis Sivack Artist Statement:

My photographic concern lies not by starting with an idea or working in the directorial mode. Instead it is by seeing and responding to the transitory world around me and its evidence of contemporary human activity. The text images here can be seen as adaptations to, and reflections on, troubled times.

In reviewing my images as a street photographer responding to the changing world around me, I have chosen images which show that with paint, paper, boards, bricks, and markers on available walls our urban recorders (today’s stone workers or cave painters) face and deface, and construct and destruct, in their layered ways, images to their liking and in their interest, cumulatively leaving an ephemeral record saying, “I was here and I am gone.”

That is also true with the image from a protest parade.  While the posters and marchers are gone, their messages live on in these images.

Cara Lee  Wade Artist Statement:

Fossil Poetry

Wild plants choose the space in which they reside; they have memory, and they learn.  Domesticated plants grow and thrive based on the care and attention they receive. Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer quantifies plants as “animated, living beings and as living beings they breathe, dance and preen”. 

When Wade first started this project, she was attending an artist residency where she was striving to create an intimate connection to the art-making space she was inhabiting. Coincidentally she heard Kimmerer speak on NPR and her words coalesced with the plants surrounding her and this, coupled with the unpredictable lumen process which requires letting go of control and relishing in experimentation has spoken to her creative soul.

Archival Images from Cameraless Lumen Prints

Lumen Prints are solar photograms – a cameraless photographic process involving black and white photographic paper, in this case organic materials, such as flowers, plant life, seaweed alongside household organic substances, examples include salt, turmeric, kelp, beetroot, and spirulina and exposed in Sunlight.  The Sun reacts with and infiltrates the organic materials to produce image registration and colors in the black and white paper.  The original images are temporary; continued exposure to the sun will result in the disappearance of the imagery while fixing the photographic paper dilutes the quality of color and texture.  In my process, the images are exposed, scanned immediately, enlarged, and printed archivally on aluminum.

A Note about Locations

I began making Lumens in 2018. Each body of Lumens are made in a specific place.  At this time, I have created bodies of Lumens in Portage, Indiana at the Taleamor Park Artist Residency, in my home in Fort Wayne, Indiana during the 2020 quarantine, in my family home in Southern Georgia, at The Golden Apple Artist Residency in Coastal Maine and at South Porch Artist Residency in Summerville, South Carolina.

Emily Wiethorn Artist Statement:

The Death of You and Me

I hope my skin settled into your carpet

my hair woven into your sheets

my saliva soaked into your clothes

because that would mean

that parts of me are still there

waiting for you

adjusting into your world

I hope I’m the dust on your dresser

the air that you breathe

my body sleeps in your garden

my skin the soil beneath your feet

How do you tell a story with no beginning, middle, or end? Trauma comes in waves. I used to think it was all at once, like jumping into the ocean. But instead of crashing into me, it laps at my ankles. How do trauma and imprisonment change our understanding of ourselves? How does the trauma we suffer change those close to us?

Five years ago, I was drugged, abducted, and raped repeatedly for six hours by a stranger. It took 360 minutes to escape, only to find myself alone, over an hour away from anywhere familiar, navigating my way home in the darkness. Most of those minutes are black holes in my mind, fleeting glimpses trapped in the void. Trauma comes in waves, washing over me in gentle reminders of what I endured. My photographic work is a place to ask questions of myself, my assailant, and a society that perpetuates violence. The images question time, duration, and trust within ourselves. Can we trust those around us? Can we trust our own memories?

Mark Almanza Artist Statement:

My name is Mark Almanza, currently pursuing my MFA in Studio Art at UW-Madison, my work and research revolves around the question I am constantly confronted with, “What does it mean for me to be first-generation Mexican American.” Both of my parents were both in Mexico, my father in Guanajuato and my mother in Guadalajara. Growing up, I always felt this “in-betweenness” about my identity; I understood Spanish way more than I could speak it, so I always took the “awkward middle seat” and kept to myself when in conversation with family members. At the same time, I was as physically connected as I could ever be, especially being raised in Arizona. I know that I am not alone in these feelings, artists like Jennifer Ling Datchuk speak to this idea of a layered identity as a “third culture kid” in their work. I have always been hyper aware of the media that I consume and the memories I have, my father worked for Time Warner Cable so we had access to a seemingly unlimited library of media that kid me enjoyed just a bit too much. In the 90s and early 2000s, “Latinidad” began to take up more space in the Anglo markets, artists like Selena, Ricky Martin, Shakira, Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez and movies like Blood in Blood Out, Mi Familia, and Real Women Have Curves shined a light on experiences of those who looked just like me. But looking back, this falsified idea of a “Latin explosion” branded by the Anglo markets created an “acceptable” and “marketable” version of what Latinidad is or should be. This void of connection combined with the historical lack of Latine representation in the countless forms of media we consume, forces me to feel like an “observer” rather than an active participant in the culture. I use photography, specifically self-portraiture, close introspection of memories, and referential analysis of media culture like films, TV, and music as tools that allow me to take back control of the narrative.

Dominique Ellis Artist Statement:

My project, The Icy Archive, includes large-scale photographic prints that evoke geologic forms and glacial melting. Melting illustrates the transformation of old structures breaking down by visualizing thermal and entropic phases and states. The imagery in the large-scale prints is derived from intimate studio experiments of melting ice cubes, rocks, and minerals that reveal patterns of sedimentary flow over time. The control I exercise in my studio is a metaphor for large-scale human intervention and disruption in earth systems since the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch, the geological age when human activities have been the dominant influence on climate and environment.

I adopted an approach called molecular anthropology to understand the relationship between human intervention and perception. The French art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud introduced the concept of the artist as a molecular anthropologist in 2023, to discuss the shifts in our planet and the role that artists play in the Anthropocene. In my work, I am interested in showing the molecular and granular structure of the melting ice, as well as what remains when the water has evaporated. What is at stake is how to see what is in front of us and to see what is too massive in scale for human understanding.

Fatemeh Fani Artist Statement:

Art has always been my means of survival—a way to process the world’s weight, to translate the complexities of my inner life into something tangible. Through photography, I don’t just capture what’s in front of me; I capture the chaos, the silence, and the rage that often remain hidden beneath the surface. For me, art is more than expression; it’s a form of self-healing, a tool for reclaiming something lost in a world where control, oppression, and censorship dominate.

As an Iranian woman who has always been a witness and a victim of discrimination and restriction, I know well the ways in which society seeks to silence, restrict, and define us. In a country where laws are tailored to uphold a specific kind of order—an order that leaves little room for the diverse realities of individuals—women are trapped in a cycle of marginalization. This is not an abstract idea; it is lived reality. From the mandatory hijab to the restrictions on travel, work, and even personal expression, Iranian women are told, in no uncertain terms, that their existence must conform to a set of rules created by others. But beyond the legal restrictions, it is the constant surveillance, the quiet threats, and the everyday violence that are the most insidious.

Yet, the plight of women in Iran is only one part of a much larger and darker story. In a country where homosexuality is criminalized, and gender expression is controlled by the state, the LGBTQ+ community lives under constant threat. People face imprisonment, torture, or even death for simply existing as they are. Transgender people, although allowed to undergo surgery, are caught in a paradox: they are permitted to change their bodies but not their identity. Even with medical intervention, they face deep societal rejection, violence, and exclusion. The laws don’t just punish individuals—they erase entire identities, forcing people into dangerous silence and pushing them deeper into the shadows.

In many ways, this silence is enforced by a media landscape that is either heavily censored by the government or neglected by the outside world. More than half of the news coming out of Iran is filtered or outright blocked by the Islamic Republic. Even when stories manage to escape the country’s borders, foreign media outlets often fail to address the underlying issues in any meaningful way. The voices of the oppressed—women, LGBTQ+ people, ethnic and religious minorities—are rarely heard. Their suffering is invisible, their struggles are obscured. The global community remains largely ignorant to the severity of the violations taking place every day. This lack of awareness is not just a matter of information; it is a matter of life and death.

This is why art is so crucial. Art cannot replace the struggle for freedom, but it can make it visible. Through my photography, I have tried to capture the faces and lives of those too often erased from public discourse—those who face oppression not just as a policy, but as a fundamental part of their daily existence. My work is an act of resistance, a declaration that their stories matter, that they deserve to be heard, and that their voices will not be silenced. In the face of censorship, in the face of violence, art can offer a window into a world that the powers desperately want to keep it hidden. It can speak when everything else is forced to remain silent.

Jocelyn Flores Artist Statement:

Jocelyn Flores is a photography based artist. My work primarily stems from conceptual ideas about topics like identity, community, gender, self expression, and more. I work with both analog, alternative, and digital photography depending on the series.I was born in a Mexican American household from Homestead in South Florida. I am currently studying for my BFA in photography with specialization in biomedical and forensics at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida.

From the series, “Duality of Extremities”, I capture myself playing with extreme identities of the masculine and feminine. Shot on 35mm black and white film then digitally scanned and printed to be hand cut and collaged into diptychs. Growing up with majority male relatives, I observed the “machismo” culture along with gender roles that women have, that are known to the hispanic community. As I got older, I felt compelled to exaggerate my femininity and challenge those gender expectations to take up space with the male energy within the family. 

Through self portraiture, I aimed to capture masculine archetypes such as the “player” “El Toixo” etc, as well as feminine archetypes like the “maneater” “femme fatale” etc that are often seen in the media. By playing with clothing, facial hair, jewelry, and impersonating different demeanors, I am embodying the extreme feminine and masculine version of myself. By having these two extreme versions of myself clashing together it makes an intriguing take on the gender spectrum while also representing my internal struggle with gender expression.

Miles Jordan Artist Statement:

504-907 by Miles B. Jordan

My project, 504-907, delves into a visual comparison of two distinct yet intertwined regions—Southern Louisiana and Interior Alaska—through the lens of diptych compositions. Inspired by personal experiences and pivotal events such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon disaster during my upbringing, this work seeks to unearth the daily rhythms and cultural subtleties that define these landscapes.

Through a fusion of traditional street and documentary photography techniques, I capture the essence of daily life in New Orleans, Louisiana and Fairbanks, Alaska. The diptych format serves as a storytelling tool, juxtaposing each locale's ordinary elements and unique characteristics. People, dwellings, and the minutiae of urban life—like graffiti—converge to reveal underlying connections and distinctions.

At its core, 504-907 reflects the profound yearning for connection and preserving cultural identity in the face of relentless change. It aims to evoke a shared nostalgia and sense of belonging, encapsulating cherished traditions and the looming specter of transformation. Additionally, it aims to push forward the Southern fine art tradition similar to the likes of William Eggleston and William Christenberry. Additionally, my work is similar to Tina Freeman’s Lamentations as well.

Evelyn Kennedy Artist Statement:

My work stems from the fact I have no idea who I am. I feel a deep disconnect from myself that  leaves me lost, confused, and wondering why I do the things that I do. I pry into the minds of those around me in an attempt to form a connection that I cannot achieve in myself. I need to know the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of everyone around me so I can understand them. I do not know another means of connection aside from learning every detail there is to know about an individual. I always hope that in return, someone will attempt to pry me open and inspect every detail. Maybe then someone else will be able to tell me who I am.

Aidan Lancaster Artist Statement:

My work is a raw examination of the pressure to conform to societal expectations of masculinity from the perspective of a trans masculine person. Utilizing a spectrum of emotion from humor to vulnerability within a genre of portraiture, my work demands a broader analysis of strictly policed gender norms and social pressures with which transgender individuals must comply to find some degree of acceptance both publicly and privately. My work goes beyond the request to acknowledge trans existence and challenges the necessity of existing social expectations.

In juxtaposing both humorous and more serious scenarios, this work simultaneously invites the viewer in on the joke while also offering a level of vulnerability. The variety of tone from humor to serious creates an ongoing dialogue, representing the real experiences of a trans person. Within these constructed tableaus are imagined futures, ongoing struggles, moments of pride and anxiety displayed in a controlled setting. Backdrops are printed from photographs or appropriated imagery, which serves to ground the viewer in each hypothetical setting. The highly artificial nature of each scene serves to highlight the construction of these gendered experiences. My work queers gender norms and expectations in the way that it encourages the viewer to engage with these coded scenes. 

This work also incorporates prop within tableau, which serves to bring the viewer into the more outlandish scenarios. The poignantly focused view of these photos on the genital area in combination with the use of different double entendres encourage a more humorous approach to the sarcastically absurd work. The repetition of subject matter in concert with the bright and popping colors create a coded scene which draws the eye to the focal point and implicates the viewer in the ongoing morbid curiosity about the sex of the subject, without offering any relief or closure through a final confirmation.

  Ultimately, my work pressures the viewer to confront their own predispositions about how we as a society approach sex assigned at birth and gender in order to work towards a more open and accepting understanding of identities. My work serves as a point of connection, simultaneously validating viewers who identify with it and welcoming others who may be more frustrated or confounded by its purpose into a middle ground and open dialogue. The rigidity of masculinity in contemporary society and the policing of gender roles and expectations does a disservice to everyone, whether they are cis or trans gender.

Keilicia Parker Artist Statement:

In exploration of transitional relationships and spaces, this project focuses on themes of transitional phases between relationships involving people and places. Featuring a series of portraits incorporating lenticular imagery, it is designed to explore and investigate the experiences of Black people in the South and the conditions that have shaped aspects of their identity while living in the region.

The series centers specifically on the identities of individuals as they exist within the Southern United States like Alabama or Florida. The lenticular imagery, paired with digital effects, is used to highlight heritage and nationality. This is achieved through a gradient map that transitions from the colors of the state or country flag representing their origins to the colors of the state flag where they currently reside.

My interest in using lenticular imagery stems from its ability to reveal and conceal elements, a recurring process in my work. The material serves as a tool to explore how viewers can actively engage with the artwork by moving around it to fully experience the shifting images.

Ginger Gore Russell Artist Statement:

The feathers are starting to decompose. Years ago, they were tacked to the wall of 
our hunting cabin, put there by my mother fresh after the kill, blood and all. When I inherited my mother’s hunting ranch, I hated how the cabin was so uninviting. I took down the wings and all other dead animals’ antlers, horns, and skulls. I did not appreciate the things my mother had collected in her lifetime, the dead stuff she surrounded herself with, but I could not throw it all away either. Although I was raised around hunting, its brutality disturbed me. At the same time, I was fascinated by it. 

My feelings about hunting mirror my feelings about my mother, a kind of brutal fascination. Throughout our relationship, I was angry with her for making poor life decisions. Then I became angry with her for dying too young at age 55 as a result of them. Reconciling my life with her memory and the responsibilities she left me with has been a constant struggle.  

These photographs explore my feelings toward my mother as I wrestle with the contradictions in our relationship. I often photograph myself on land she once inhabited. My work is a spiritual response to her life and a search for my place within the land that now belongs to me. In this series, I am creating meaning from the past, constructing something significant for myself from the ashes of her life. I experiment with depth of field, motion blur, double exposure, and tonal quality to invite the viewer into scenes that are both serene and unsettling. These images blur the line between reality and imagination, evoking a sense of something hidden beneath the surface in the physical world and within ourselves. Through them, I reflect on the vulnerability of living things and our inevitable mortality.