March 6-18, 2023
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design
Rotunda Gallery | Lakewood, CO
SPE Reception: March 16, 6-8PM
The 2023 Society for Photographic Education Conference marks the first time we will come together as a community in three years. We last gathered in March of 2020, just a few days before the world around us would begin to shut down and life would be irreparably changed. Over the past three years—like so many of us—my awareness of the importance of relationships and community has been heightened. I have intensely felt the loss of those connections, both on an individual and communal scale, leading to larger existential questions about what it means to be alive and what makes a life worth living.
As I was looking through the submissions for this year’s Combined Caucus Exhibition, I was struck by themes of connection, of identity within oneself and in relationship with others, family, history, and home. I gravitated most towards work that had both a specificity and an urgency: work that needed to be made by a specific person at a specific moment, sharing something meaningful about their life and the way they exist within the world around them. And, of course, my selections were influenced by my own artistic interests: compelling portraiture, a strong formal use of light and color, self-reflection and introspection, and work made within a specific community. Perhaps most importantly, the work in this exhibition moved me on an emotional level, offering a glimpse into each artist’s personal experience at this unique, complex moment in time.
Jess T. Dugan
Jess T. Dugan is an artist whose work explores issues of identity through photography, video, and writing. Their work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of over 45 museums throughout the United States. Their monographs include Look at me like you love me (MACK, 2022), To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and Every Breath We Drew (Daylight Books, 2015). They are the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an ICP Infinity Award, and were selected by the Obama White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change.
jessdugan.com | IG @jesstdugan
Jess T. Dugan
Juror
Sarah Ann Austin
Exhibition Coordinator
Robert Evans
Gallery Director
James Reiman
RMCAD Liason
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design
Gallery Sponsor
Carol Record
Catalog & Web Design
SPE NATIONAL BOARD + STAFF
Scott Hilton
Board & 2023 Conference Chair
Marivi Ortiz
Board Caucus Liaison
Toni Roberts
Administrative Director
CAUCUS LEADERSHIP
Sarah Anna Austin
Women's Caucus, Chair
Erin Jennings
Contingent Faculty Caucus, Co-Chair
Matt Storm
Pride Caucus, Chair
Homecoming: An Instance of Returning Home
11th International Combined Caucus Exhibition
Limited Edition of 60
© 2023 Society for Photographic Education
Printed in the United States of America
Denver, CO | March 2023
Editor: Sarah Ann Austin
Proofreader: Marivi Ortiz
Designer: Carol Record