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

Ellen Mahaffy | My Father’s Cremains

Gina Dabrowski | Mary on Security at Framily Reunion

Cai Quirk | Woven Within

Cai Quirk | Seeing Deep Within

Riel Sturchio | Intimate Gesture

Riel Sturchio |  One Year After Surgery

Lali Khalid | 42°26’40”N | 76°30’06”W

Lali Khalid | 42°00’41”N | 87°40’25”W

Marcella Hackbardt | My Babies

Yashoda Latkar | Here, I am.

Kathryn Rodrigues | Mend Myself

Amy Davis | Welcome Home

Adam David Bencomo | Matt and Damion’s Bearish Vacation in West Virginia

Keavy Handley-Byrne | E., 2021

Fanxi Sun | Untitled

Hsing-Chia Hsieh | Seeing through