Monday, November 11, 2013

Filter Photo Festival Reviews

This October, at the Filter Photography Festival we were fortunate to review our work with a number of thoughtful photography thinkers including:

Elizabeth Avedon, book, exhibition and web designer. We presented the Dialogues with Michelangelo book project and  discussed subtitles, image quantity and order, as well as additional content. Her blog is a great resource. Her take on the Festival can be found on her blogspot.

Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director Griffin Museum, in addition to being the juror of the Festival’s fourth annual juried exhibition, Mapping: borders, bodies, to be held at David Weinberg Photography.
In an interview here at the Filter Photo blog, Image 37, Tognarelli reveals her interests: "I have a collection of globes that dot my living room. But mapping doesn’t necessarily have to do with geography, as explained in the call for entries. It can be a boundary or a point that connects an idea or  person with the land, or with another person."

Nancy Barr, Associate Curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, learned  much when she worked with Dawoud Bey, "particularly how a museum could move away from static exhibition planning and engage audiences in very powerful and directly communicative way. It was a completely different way of working….My interest has revolved around urban photography in recent years, but I also enjoy artists who work with communities in different ways."  Her comments regarding Dialogues were unique and we wish to continue the conversation on a trip to see Anna Atkins' prints at DIA.

Kyohei Abe Executie Director of Detroit Center for Contemporary Art spoke about Detroit, it " is like a blank page, where we have a lot of new ideas and not afraid to put them into action, and things like the DCCP helps tremendously…. As a director here at the DCCP, my position is to build connections, getting to know other people and share ideas." He made thoughtful connections in terms of our Natural History prints. His own work was showcased  last year on Aline Smithson's Lenscratch blog last years

We got to know Karen Irvine during events surrounding  MoCP's exhibition of the MoCP collection project and artwork of  Jan Tichy last year. We enjoyed  familiarizing her with our current work.  We love her curatoral essays and sought out her ideas about combining words and text in both Dialogues and Natural History projects.
Samples of her writing include:

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2011/12/review_redheaded_peckerwood_by_christian_patterson/
http://www.deankessmann.com/files/essays/Irvine,%20Karen.pdf
http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2010/04/sarah_pickering.php
http://www.susanareisman.com/1/category/exhibitions/1.html

In addition, we had the opportunity to visit with other honored photographers,  photography thinkers and friends including Michel Weinstein, New City photo reviewer and philosopher  who discussed with us  the fine points of  intertextuality and enculturated vs. pure humanity.   Fred Bidwellcollector,  Bidwell Projects  and photographic transformer of  Transformer Stationwho brought insights regarding our new herbarium labels for Natural History. images.

We put our feet up,  had a drink and  laughs with friend and mentor, Aline SmithsonWe gobbled up her two new photo books and caught up with her Milwaukee MIAD assistants, Grant Gill and Sarah Stankey

We're extremely  grateful to Sarah Hadley and the Filter Fest gang, for their tireless work to continually improve the festival and provide great opportunities for us!  we agree Aline's assessment:  "I think Filter creates such a collegial festival and review experience: everybody comes with positive intentions, from the reviewers to the photographers, and there are lots of opportunities for connections, conversation, and future exposure."

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