Concept Aware®

Julian Sander presents a humanist portrait of society in 619 silver gelatin portraits of 20th-century Germans photographed by his legendary great-grandfather, August Sander.For access to exclusive episode notes, explore our membership options!If you are already a member, please log in to jsybyllasmith.com and access the Concept Aware® Show Notes page through your account.

Caroline Mauxion provides an immersive experience in her solo Paris Photo installation illuminating a Crip phenomenology through an autobiographical lens.For access to exclusive episode notes, explore our membership options!If you are already a member, please log in to jsybyllasmith.com and access the Concept Aware® Show Notes page through your account.

Éric Antoine is a skateboarding self taught French painter and photographer exhibiting La Forme, a solo exhibition of luminous ambrotypes reflecting a decade of evolution to pare his creative practice to its purest essence.For access to exclusive episode notes, explore our membership options!If you are already a member, please log in to jsybyllasmith.com and access the Concept Aware® Show Notes page through your account.

I was stopped in my tracks by the groundbreaking work of Evelyn Bencicova in collaboration with graphic sound innovator Samson G. Balfour Smith being exhibited at the Artemis Gallery in the Digital Sector of the fair.For access to exclusive episode notes, explore our membership options!If you are already a member, please log in to jsybyllasmith.com and access the Concept Aware® Show Notes page through your account.

A trailblazing book chronicling the fundamental and consequential contributions of Japanese women photographers.Mariko Takeuchi and Pauline Vermare discuss their collaborative project creating a restorative history of Japanese photography. Offering a critical and celebratory counterpoint to the invisibility of Japanese women photographers this expansive and rigorously researched book features 25 portfolios, multiple essays and an illustrated bibliography of photobooks by Japanese women photographers. This bold book embraces emotion, experimentation and provocation in myriad forms of beauty, humor, and deeply spirited connections. In this conversation, Mariko and Pauline discuss, among other things:Pulling back layers of cultural understanding of being a womenExpanding vocabulary and objects of studyWomanhood, daughterhood and caregiving Physical involvement with the mediumUtilizing self-portraiture to reclaim agency over one's bodyMaking tangible that which is invisibleAn outward expression of internal experienceIncluding the voices of photographers in the essays and textMaking and remaking meaningReferenced in the episode:ApertureRencontres d’Arles Exhibition I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese women Photographers From the 1950’s to NowA World History of Women Photographers by Luce Lebart and Marie RobertThe Third Gallery AyaPGI GalleryBehind the Camera: Gender, Power, and Politics in the History of Japanese Photography / Created by Dr. Kelly McCormick and Carrie CushmanWhat They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999 by Russet Lederman and Olga YatskevichWomen Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics by Marsha MeskimmonLiving a Feminist Life by Sara AhmedWorld Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2023Self-Portraits by Yurie NagashimaUme-me - Todays Happening by Ume KayoThe Memories of Others - Akihiko Okamura / Photo Museum Ireland

Linda Troeller’s self-portraits are compiled into a luscious tour de force of womanhood, identity and aging.Troeller utilizes her relationship with the camera to understand herself and a woman’s place in the world across decades. Her history traverses that of a beauty contestant, potential lawyer, photojournalism student, model, muse, photo teacher, photographer, provocateur and activist. With conviction, insight and wisdom Troeller celebrates and generously shares her embodied strength and fragility.  In this conversation, Lindadiscusses, among other things:Universalizing the personalProvocation aka myth-bustingThe circular relationship of punctumLinda-nessSelf-portraiture, performance and installation Exploring internal and external ageismSacred water explorationsBook decisions - ie: including titlesSequencing, process and collaboration Ghost Ranch, Leonora Carrington, Sophie Calle and Carolee SchneemanReferenced in the episode:Healing Waters FilmMuseum of Sex ExhibitionChelsea HotelErotic Lives of WomenOrgasmTBWLeica Gallery Exhibition - LAMade of Rivers by Emory HallChico Hot SpringsNeither Give Not Take Away - Sophie Calle at Arles

Two intrepid photographers and professors discuss the myriad educational strategies they activate and lead to enhance and strengthen women’s presence in photography. Anna Fox and Karen Knorr share how they empower visual storytellers by engaging a global network of practitioners, academics and curators who exchange resources, challenges and strategies toward achieving gender parity in photography. We hear how they conceived and built Fast Forward, their multi-pronged research organization responsible for establishing data, developing project-based teaching tools and convening worldwide themed conferences. Lastly, we wrap by learning of their 8-year-long road trip following the route established by Bernice Abbott. In this conversation, Anna & Karen discuss, among other things:Data on the underrepresentation of women photographers Addressing and critically analyzing gender inequalities in workshop formatsImpact of motherhood and caregiving roles on professional photographers Teaching as an adjunct to pursuing one’s photographic workCoalition-building, nurturing collaborative efforts and creating global conferences to discover hidden stories of and by women visual storytellersIdentifying key gate openers and partnering with willing arts and educational institutions Network-building from exhibition practicesAmbition, Synergy and Foresight Reaching for inclusion with innovative strategiesGrants, grants and grantsHistory of their multiple road trips photographing togetherImage and text dialogReferenced in the episodeManifestoReport on Equity and InclusionFast Forward Putting Ourselves in the PictureThe Other Observers by Val WilliamsImpressions GalleryUniversity of the Arts LondonTateMEPWork Show GrowNational Portrait GalleryTrolley BooksT.J. Boulting Gallery

Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography by Dr. Siobhan Angus is the lens through which we explore the multi-media artwork of Rosell Meseguer and Kosisochukwu Nnebe. This deeply researched and resourced book contextualizes the dark side of photography, the mining and extraction of elements that make printing possible. Our conversation centers on the many intersections of image-making and resource extraction. The deep scholarship of my guest's practices makes manifest the complex relationship between photography, colonization, labor, ecological, economic and social impact. In this conversation, Siobhan, Rosell and Kosisochukwudiscuss, among other things:Flipping photography on its headImplication and possibilities of the interaction of light with metalsExtraction of rare earth elementsProcess-based practices - artists thinking out loud Ideas, materiality & visibilityArt exploring gaps and erasure in archivesChlorophyll printingColonial historiesFood policy, manufacturing and distributionTalking about the past & the present simultaneouslyConnecting science & artIlluminating economics in our daily life choicesArt creating theoryReferenced in the episode:Dr. Siobhan AngusRosell MeseguerKosisochukwu NnebeHiền HoàngWomen and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her by Susan Griffin

Unscripted conversations with Aldeide Delgado, co-founder and leader of Women Photographers International Archive, and recent WOPHA Research Fellow and scholar, Dr. Candice Jansen.Each woman shares their expansive practice, leading with curiosity and utilizing inquiry to activate potentiality. As scholars, archivists, writers, curators, and collaborators - their open-ended investigations resist a singular way of seeing. They build evolutionary and community-driven paradigms based on research, and center the importance of the past to envision a more equitable future. In this conversation, Aldeide and Candicediscuss, among other things:Amplifying visual stories of marginalized communitiesRewriting photographic history from a feminist perspective Curatorial activism Rhizomatic thinking Trial, error and playPlace as processThe audience as the protagonist New vocabulary and new definitions - ie. Memorist Photography as a medium and a whole-body experienceEstablishing terms of visibility Prismatic perceptionReferenced in the episode:Doreen Masseybell hooksWT Mitchell - what if race were a medium?The Photography NetworkRegarding MuslimsStuart Hall 1990 essay

This seminal book, a compendium of image-based projects, illuminates the subtle evolution of ideas of photographic practice over time.This book offers a non-authoritarian systematic deconstruction of photo history to expand ways of making, seeing, and thinking about the multi-layers of relationships within photography. Five revered photographers, teachers and scholars innovated ways to visualize process and reinvestigate archives. Their collaborative project results in a prismatic view, new vocabulary and an essential teaching tool. In this conversation, Susan Mieselas, Wendy Ewald and Laura Wexler discuss, among other things:Opening new relationships within the event of photographyLimits of visual vocabularyMethodologies that favor listening, learning and unlearningThe malleability of ideas and associationsSeeing across timePhoto with the blinders offCreating vocabularySeeing threads and weaving themDiscovering what is missingBuilding understandingDynamics of visual cultureReferenced in the episode:Susan MiesalasAriella Aisha AzoulayLaura WexlerWendy EwaldLeigh Raiford

This is an introduction to the Leica team in Mexico, Central, and South America, which is actively highlighting and amplifying the visual voices across Latin America.Meet: Aurora Bruzon - Latin America Marketing ManagerBetsy May - Commercial Director Latin AmericaManolo Marquez - Gallery and Akademie Manager for Leica Mexico Each one shares specifics on their mission to bring diverse services and expand programming with Latin artists. Aurora, Betsy and Manolo discuss among other things:Fostering community among passionate visual storytellersBuilding global bridgesBringing Leica values to a larger audienceImplementing ways to see the world through a Leica lensNews from the flagship Mexico City store and galleryExpansion of programming across the regionThe 29 Leica Galleries around the worldFraming photography as an expressive artPromoting diverse workCommercializing a variety of photographic genresReferenced in the episode:Leica Mexico CityLeica Women Foto ProjectLeica Oskar Barnack AwardLeica AkademieLeica Camera, U.S.A.WOPHA CongressWOPHA FoundationPerez Art Museum MiamiNorton Art Museum

Danielle Ezzo is a new media artist pioneering the lossy space of photography through a process of sourcing from the vast digitized open-access archive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This beguiling book animates McLuhan's semiotic principle, the medium is the message, by activating the ability of photography to simultaneously communicate and mediate. Ezzo’s rephotographed art objects unleash an open-ended exploration into how history is shaped and its potential to propagate the future. In this conversation, Danielle discusses, among other things:Viewer as curatorNon-linear lookingIntuitive response led by the aesthetics of formal qualitiesFreeing artifacts of origins Subjectivity of documentationCategorization mattersLossinessLetting go of presuppositions (aka prescribed notions)Sensibilities changeHow images circulate nowSky as inspiration and analogous to virtual spaceReimagining artistic communitiesNFT’sEconomics of being an artistSynthetic images Museums' role as cultural arbitersCultural lagNumber Theory

A decade of attending this fair has honed my ability to select from the staggering amount of concurrent offerings - astounding amounts of work, panel discussions, book signings and outside Prsi Photo happenings during a packed week in Paris. In this conversation, Syb discusses, among other things:VernissageNew discoveries Elles x Paris Photo platforms and anniversary bookRobert Cumming happenings - including a new documentaryBook AwardsAI and digital photography taking a foothold at the fairPolycopies Sophie Calle taking over the Picasso MuseumBleak yet authentic reflections on maternal relationships at Le Bal

David Campany pays tribute to the multidisciplinarian artist Robert Cumming, known for his rigorous dedication to the aesthetic tonality of the B & W image and his uncanny investigations into the philosophical nature of perception. Lusciously printed images from original 8 x 10 negatives are evidence of Cummings' masterful camera work marrying his fascination with photography’s ability to simultaneously describe and mislead. David Campany's equal sensibilities are evident in an erudite, witty essay and compelling image sequence.In this conversation, David discusses, among other things:Nonsense & SensibilityChicanery & witCraft and camera work Fluid interchange of mediaTransition of an object into an imageLooking at work in the roundNot getting pigeonholed SpecialismModernist IdealsThinking of scaleLanding in the middleViewers response to the work provides its meaningAll you can do with a watermelon

This recent Radius release offers an expansive framework of the principles of publishing including the layered roles and responsibilities inherent within the creation of a photobook. NOT a how-to guidebook, this beautiful object elegantly packages decades of research and provides contemporary resources to illustrate the endless possibilities of the photobbook. Swanson and Himes share the mission to create impactful photography books by encouraging all artists to: slow down idea formation, linger in the making mode, and do thy research.In this conversation, Swanee and Darius discuss, among other things:The biggest challenge - conceiving the ideaFostering a dynamic engagement with one's ideasSeeing the end in the beginningPlay, patience & persistenceConcept guiding contextStepping outside the medium of photoogrpahy to clarify and deepen your ideaCritical thinking Not rushing the monographThe book as art formPhotogrpahs as raw materialImpact of digital publishingPivotal role of self publishingUniversity PressesBalancing creative & business perspectivesThe evolving life of marketing a book

Episode Notes Photojournalist Preston Gannaway won a Pulitzer Prize for her poetic photography documenting a New Hampshire family coping with a young mother's illness and death. Remember Me is her breathtakingly graceful and intimate chronology of EJ over the intervening years since he lost his mother at 3 years of age. Gannaway masterfully transcends one family's journey to speak to the universal touchstones of life, love, loss, and the abiding ties that bind.In this conversation, Preston discusses, among other things:Observation as a superpowerFinding a photographParameters of storytelling Intuitiveness and nuanceConsent & collaborationPhotojournalismDocumentary traditionCommunity journalismA prologue of imagesHindsightCapturing presence in the absenceTaking away the ‘fever pitch’Defining objectivityAn empathic eyeEditing and sequencingFunding projectsBig, weighty things

Photography is innovatively and collectively utilized to create a new narrative challenging the stigma and stereotypes of this indigenous community. This book is a multilingual textural object of beauty and wisdom — a non-linear collective celebration and document of home, belonging, hospitality, reciprocity and the longing to live in communion with the land.In this conversation, Rehab discusses, among other things:Personal exploration as motivation and inspirationConnecting to the protagonists of your storiesSeeing with an empathic eyeGiving voice to the voicelessBlending practice and processCalling out visual referencesInternalization of the ubiquitous colonial gaze Being Modern vs WesternProgressive traditional gender roles Symbols & MetaphorEmpowerment & ElevationIncorporating soundscapesFashion history as a cultural, socio-political window

American Bedroom: Reflections on the Nature of Life is a messy, energetic, playful and heart-stoppingly poignant romp into the intimate spaces of ordinary Americans. Each portrait is accompanied by text by the subject. The result is an anthropological study of the physical, emotional, spiritual, political and psychological landscape of 21st century America. Peacock brings a wealth of experience and a very expansive heart to this tour de force of human cartography. In this conversation, Barbara discusses, among other things:Leading with the light - especially cascading amber lightGrabbing the detailsSerendipityBeing bold and thinking bigFollowing instinct and intuitionEnvisioningStreet photography skillsBuilding an archive of inspirationBrutal editingChoral (collaborative) Editing CrowdsourcingGrants and fundingCapturing the climate of the countrySocial media as help and hindranceDoing the “Barb thing”

Elizabeth Clark Libert's bold diaristic conversation with herself is a reckoning with a twenty years old sexual trauma and its impact on raising her school-age sons. Boy Crazy is a masterfully designed melange of self-portraits, environmental portraits, seasonal landscapes and family photos. Interspersed in a searingly honest staccato manner are intimate musings, email correspondence with her perpetrator and snippets of pointed conversation with her sons.  In this conversation, Elizabeth discusses, among other things: Art as process Reclaiming agency following sexual trauma Shooting through ambivalence Lyricism and raw emotion  Giving context Collaboration Being in conversation with your work Wasabi writing Finding the structure of the book Experimenting and refining Asymmetry Visualizing  Generating change and opening hard conversations  Being brave together Visit my website for a full list of resources.

Anastasia Samoylova furthers her exploration of place and the ability of photography to shape our perceptions of reality. Central to her investigation is the geography of human relationships to our natural and man-made environments. Utilizing her masterful ability to collage in-camera, her flattened imagery provides us with a kaleidoscope of ideas surrounding globalization, historical heritage, and cultural idealism.In this conversation, Anastasia discusses, among other things:Geometry of the frameAlignment of elementsFigures in the landscapeSpatial interplayIllusion of scaleInviting interpretationDialoguing with a targeted audienceExposing tools of the mediumGendering of citiesFeminist geography Stoic philosophy