Total eclipse of the sun: Observed July 29, 1878, at Creston, Wyoming Territory by by French-born astronomer-illustrator Étienne Léopold Trouvelot.

Humble Arts Foundation presents an open call for photography about the sun and the moon

As the world seems to increasingly divide, it often feels as if hope and optimism are in vain. The sun and the moon can be symbols of universality despite division, illuminating the skies above us all. For our final open call of 2021, (with a slight homage to one of our heroes, Penelope Umbrico), we want to see your photos of and about the sun and/or the moon. These can be straightforward, manipulated, alt-process – anything and everything photography-based.

Guidelines:
Submit up to 5 images plus a brief artist statement and bio HERE

(please note, you’ll need a Gmail address or a Google account login and will need to sign in to it to submit this way. If you do not have one, email us at submit@hafny.org and we’ll help you out.)

Deadline: November 1, 2021.

PostedSeptember 24, 2021

AuthorEditors

CategoriesExhibitions, Open Call

Tagssun photos, moon photos, Humble Arts Foundation, Jon Feinstein, Roula Seikaly, Photography opportunities, no-fee open calls

Two Bands, Different Frequencies. 2018-2019 © Cristina Velásquez

Assembly’s innovative new platform and business model helps photographers navigate the complex and evolving world of art and commerce.

Ashlyn Davis Burns and Shane Lavalette are known as dedicated, artist-focused members of the photo community through their work with Houston Center for Photography and Light Work respectively. In 2020, as the COVID pandemic forced us to reconsider where and how we work, the duo left their institutional positions to found Assembly.

Operating virtually as an art agency, gallery, and creative studio, and with minimal physical overhead, Davis Burns and Lavalette are determined to support their clients in all the various roles they occupy, not simply as makers in a ravenous capitalist market.

I spoke with Lavalette and Burns about their exciting vision.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Ashlyn Davis Burns and Shane Lavalette

PostedSeptember 16, 2021

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArt News, interviews

TagsAssembly, Ashlyn Davis Burns, Shane Lavalette, new photography business models, photography platforms, Houston Center for Photography, Roula Seikaly, Light Work, how to succeed as a photographer, how to make money as a photographer, how to earn a living as a photographer, emerging photograpers

Fresh Meadows Cranberry Farm © Gene Dominique

Gene Dominique’s Still Here - African American Farmers in the 21st Century shows Black farmers of all ages and experience levels contributing to a backbone of American industry, despite numerous hurdles.

In March 2021, it was announced that roughly half of the $10.4 billion dollar portion of the American Rescue Plan earmarked for agriculture relief will go to Black farmers. Aid in the form of debt relief, grants, training, education and other assistance will help historically disadvantaged farmers acquire land and build or supplement existing farms. The news is welcome, and tainted by a lawsuit filed by disgruntled white farmers who insist that the Biden administration’s strides toward equity are biased.

While the case winds its way through this country’s labyrinthine legal system, the farmers portrayed in Gene Dominique’s long form documentary project Still Here - African American Farmers in the 21st Century will continue working. Inspired by his family’s south Louisiana agricultural legacy, Dominique captures the love and labor of working the land in images that easily rival the storied work of Farm Security Administration photographers.

I’ve known and admired Gene’s work for a few years now. It was a pleasure to learn about the series’ origin, how it started and who participates, and how he plans to pursue it as Covid-related restrictions are slowly lifted.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Gene Dominique

PostedAugust 5, 2021

AuthorRoula Seikaly

TagsBlack farmers, African American farmers, american agriculture, agricultural photos, Gene Domininque, Roula Seikaly, photographer interviews, documentary photography, photojournalism

Sarah-Lourdes Abrahamsen’s Drug Dreams uses photographs and text to visualize the artist’s fraught and ongoing journey from addiction to sobriety.

2020 exacted a profound psychological toll. Managing the tightly-wound anxieties fueled by a global health crisis, quarantine, and concerns for our families’ health and our own stretched our emotional fiber to its limit. For those grappling with addiction and substance abuse disorder, the challenges were all the more acute. A July 17th CNN report indicates that 93,000 Americans succumbed to drug overdoses in 2020, a 29.4% increase over 2019, the highest number ever reported.

Sarah-Lourdes Abrahamsen is one of millions of Americans who battled addiction last year, leaning into her photographic practice to make sense of the struggle and to honor sobriety’s hard-fought milestones. Named for the vivid dreams that may occur as addiction’s morbid grip loosens, the series Drug Dreams recounts her experience. Hastily composed text and images - some sharply focused and others blurry - uncannily mirror a mind free of, or marinating in intoxicants.

I met Abrahamesen in a recent portfolio review for Parsons School of Design. Over email and Zoom, our conversation delved further into the relationship between image and text, the human cost of the war on drugs, and how a creative practice supports sobriety.

Roula Seikay in conversation with Sarah-Lourdes Abrahamsen

PostedJuly 29, 2021

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArtists, Galleries, interviews

TagsSarah Lourdes Abrahamsen, Roula Seikaly, photography and addiction, photography during quarantine

The multidisciplinary artist combines textiles and digital media to create new perspectives on Black femininity.

Have you read the latest issue of Art in America? Deftly assembled by guest editor Antwaun Sargent, “New Talent 2021” is bursting with writing by authors including Jasmine Sanders and Emmanuel Iduma and work by emerging artists Justin Allen, Miles Greenberg, and Tourmaline. I haven’t absorbed all of that rich content yet, but I have spent time talking with Qualeasha Wood, whose genre-bending tapestry Black Madonna-Whore Complex (2021) graces the cover.

Currently Detroit-based, Wood originally thought to pursue a military career, following the example set by her Air Force-veteran parents. That all changed after Wood enrolled in a high school art class on a whim. The experience clarified for her that art-making could be the physical and psychological space to explore Black femininity, and the joys and traumas inherent to that experience.

We met during a virtual portfolio review organized by Shanna Merola for Cranbrook Academy of Art MFA candidates in mid-2020. We reconnected to discuss image, symbolic language, and engaging the art world on her own, often controversial terms.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Qualeasha Wood

PostedMay 27, 2021

AuthorRoula Seikaly

TagsQualeasha Wood, Roula Seikaly, Art in America cover, multidisciplinary artists, tufting, contemporary artists working with tapestry

Open Call: Group Show #70: Under The Sun and the Moon

How Assembly Is Helping Art Photographers Get Their Worth

Still Here - Gene Dominique Photographs African American Farmers in the 21st Century

Getting Clean During a Pandemic

Qualeasha Wood's Black Femme Tapestries