About the Participants

IwanBaan Headshot Photo Credit  Jonas Eriksson Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Iwan Baan, Photographer (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Panel: Designing for People?

Dutch photographer Iwan Baan is known primarily for images that narrate the life and interactions that occur within architecture. Born in 1975, Iwan grew up outside Amsterdam, studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and worked in publishing and documentary photography in New York and Europe. With no formal training in architecture, his perspective mirrors the questions and perspectives of the everyday individuals who give meaning and context to the architecture and spaces that surround us, and this artistic approach has given matters of architecture an approachable and accessible voice. Known architects turn to Baan to give their work a sense of place and narrative within their environments. (Photo Credit: Jonas Eriksson)

JordanBear Headshot Photo Credit  J.L. Clarke Square 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Jordan Bear, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada)
Panel: Electricity

Jordan Bear is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto. His scholarship has focused on the historical intersection of visual representation, knowledge, and belief. His book, Disillusioned: Victorian Photography and the Discerning Viewer (Penn State University Press, 2015), received the Historians of British Art Book Award for Exemplary Scholarship on the Period after 1800. He is now at work on a study of photography and trust in the nineteenth century. (Photo Credit: J.L. Clarke)

KimBeil Headshot Photo Credit  Austin Nelson Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Dr. Kim Beil, Art Historian based at Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
Panel: Signal and Event: Early Press Photography and Its Distributions

Kim Beil, Ph.D., is an art historian who teaches at Stanford University. Her book, Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography, tracks 50 stylistic trends in the medium since the 19th century. Much of the research was drawn from vintage how-to manuals. Alec Soth said Good Pictures “opened my eyes to the enormous value these books hold for our critical understanding of the medium.” Most recently, Beil has written about photography and climate change for the Atlantic, trick photography and TikTok for Lapham’s Quarterly, and the pre-history of Zoom backgrounds for Aeon. She also writes about modern and contemporary art and has published in ArtforumArt in AmericaBOMB, and Photograph magazines. (Photo Credit: Austin Nelson)

ToddLevonBrown Headshot Photo Credit  Jana Birchum Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Dr. Todd Levon Brown, Environmental Psychologist (Austin, TX)
Panel: Designing for People?

Trained as an architect, Dr. Todd Brown is an environmental psychologist whose research lies primarily at the intersection of critical [race] theory and the built environment. Both his theoretical and empirical research relies heavily on the use of photography and imagery to underscore how architecture and other physical spaces are produced, perceived, and evaluated as racialized and embodying other social constructs. His dissertation investigated how environmental cues—such as architectural design features and other physical properties—are used in the development of one’s imaginary of urban space. Here, he utilized the photovoice of his research participants to document their sociospatial meaning-making processes in the context of gentrification. Dr. Brown has published several scholarly works at the intersections of psychosocial perception, race, social justice, architecture, and urban design. He has also been a team member in several design competitions including the Van Alan Institute’s 2017 Justice in Design Competition for Healthier Jail Design and the Center for Architecture’s Reset: Towards a New Commons, an exhibition at which explores new dynamics for living in the context of senior-centered housing and community planning. As an interdisciplinary scholar, he has taught in various programs including psychology at Hunter College, CUNY, and the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY;  urban studies at Queens College; and architecture at the City College of New York and Columbia University. He currently serves as the 2021-23 Race and Gender in the Built Environment Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, where he teaches design studio workshops and seminar classes on inclusion and socioracial sustainability. Dr. Brown received his BA, MPH, and MArch from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his MA, MPhil, and PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center. (Photo Credit: Jana Birchum)

DieuNalioChery Headshot1 Photo Credit  Valerie Baeriswyl Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Dieu-Nalio Chery, Associated Press Photojournalist (New York, NY)
Panel: Breaking News

Dieu-Nalio Chery, born in Haiti, was interested in photography from a young age. He decided to pursue a career in photojournalism after witnessing the aftermath of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, when the country saw an increase of all major categories of crimes and Chery saw how the authorities treated the victims without any respect for their rights. In 2011, he was selected for a full-scholarship photojournalism workshop in Argentina with Foundry Photojournalism. He joined The Associated Press in 2010, and, along with Rebecca Blackwell, was a 2020 Pulitzer finalist for the breaking news photography award for his coverage of violent clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators in Haiti.

MoyraDavey Headshot Photo Credit  Gene Pittman Walker Art Center Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Moyra Davey, Artist (New York, NY)
Artist Spotlight

Moyra Davey is a New York-based artist whose work comprises the fields of photography, film and writing. She is the author of Index Cards, Burn the Diaries, and The Problem of Reading, and editor of Mother Reader: Essential Writings on MotherhoodThe Shabbiness of Beauty, a book of photographs by Peter Hujar and Davey, with a text by Eileen Myles was published in 2021. Davey’s work is held in major public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art,  the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Tate Modern in London. She is a 2020 recipient of the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. (Photo Credit: Gene Pittman/Walker Art Center)

SandroFiorin Headshot Photo Credit  Esteban Chinchilla Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati

Sandro Fiorin, Founder, FiGa Films (Miami, FL)
Film Panel: Watching Movies with Subtitles

Brazilian born Sandro Fiorin founded FiGa Films in Los Angeles in January 2006 with partner, Cuban-American Alex Garcia to produce, distribute, and sell Latin American content worldwide. Raised in Rio de Janeiro, Fiorin attended film school at the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (São Paulo, Brazil) and the New School (New York, NY), where he lived and worked for 14 years, before relocating to California in 2001. He has held positions at the Film Forum, Universal, First Look Films and CalArts during his 25-year career in the industry. In 2017, he was invited to program Encuentros, the WIP for the Miami International Film Festival, where he now resides. Fiorin has been invited as a jury member and speaker at Cannes, Toronto, San Sebastian, Rotterdam, Istanbul, Cartagena, Mar del Plata, and at the United Nations in Geneva. (Photo Credit: Laura Canha Malpique)

ChandraFrank Headshot Photo Credit  Amaal Said Square 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati

Dr. Chandra Frank, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati and Independent Curator (Cincinnati, OH)
Panel: Remote Exhibiting

Dr. Chandra Frank (she/her) is a feminist researcher who works on the intersections of archives, waterways, gender, sexuality, and race. Chandra holds a PhD from the Department of Media, Communications, and Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her curatorial practice explores the politics of care, experimental forms of narration, and the colonial grammar embedded within display and exhibition arrangements. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, exhibition catalogues and art publications, including Feminist Review, the Small Axe VLOSA catalogue, The Place is HereTonguesFoam Magazine and StedelijkStudies. Chandra recently co-edited a special issue on Archives for Feminist Review. She is working on her first monograph and is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati. (Photo Credit: Amaal Said)

AliceGabriner Headshot Photo Credit  N A Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Alice Gabriner, Independent Visual Editor (New York, NY)
Panel: Breaking News

Alice Gabriner is a visual editor, curator and educator with more than 30 years of experience in journalism at TIME, National Geographic, The New Yorker and The New York Times. For the first two years of the Obama administration, she served as Deputy Director of Photography at the Obama White House. She is currently on the faculty at The International Center of Photography.

The stories she has produced have been recognized with multiple ASME, World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International and OPC awards. 

SophieHackett Headshot Photo Credit  Luis Mora Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Sophie Hackett, Curator of Photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
Keynote Conversation

Sophie Hackett is the Curator, Photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and adjunct faculty in Ryerson University’s master’s program in Film + Photography Preservation and Collections Management. Hackett’s areas of specialty include vernacular photographs; photography in relation to queerness; and photography in Canada from the 1960s to the 1990s. Her curatorial projects include Barbara Kruger: Untitled (It) (2010); Max Dean: Album, A Public Project (2012); What It Means To be Seen: Photography and Queer Visibility and Fan the Flames: Queer Positions in Photography (2014); Introducing Suzy Lake (2014); Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s–1980s (2016); Anthropocene (2018) and Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956–1971 (2020).

Recent publications include “Queer Looking: Joan E. Biren’s Slide Shows” in Aperture (spring 2015), “Encounters in the Museum: The Experience of Photographic Objects” in the edited volume The “Public” Life of Photographs (Ryerson Image Centre and MIT Press, 2016), “Far and Near: New Views of the Anthropocene” in Anthropocene: Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier (AGO and Goose Lane, 2018); and “Bobbie in Context” in the award-winning Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography (Steidl and The Walther Collection, 2020).

Hackett was a 2017 Fellow with the Center for Curatorial Leadership. (Photo Credit: Luis Mora)

JasonHill Headshot Photo Credit  Lisa Cherkerzian Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Jason Hill, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Delaware (Newark, DE)
Panel: Signal and Event: Early Press Photography and Its Distributions

Jason Hill is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Artist as Reporter: Weegee, Ad Reinhardt, and the PM News Picture (2018) and the co-editor, with Vanessa R. Schwartz, of Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News (2015). With Zeynep Gursel, Jason is presently co-editing a forthcoming special double-issue of the journal History of Photography on photography’s global entanglements with policing. His current book project considers the force of police radio in the visual culture of the United States. (Photo Credit: Lisa Cherkerzian)

CoreyKeller Headshot Photo Credit  Don Ross Courtesy Of SFMOMA Square 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Corey Keller, Independent Curator and Scholar (Oakland, CA)
Panel: Electricity

Corey Keller is an independent curator and scholar of the history of photography based in Oakland, California. She recently stepped down as curator of photography and acting head of the Photography Department at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), where she was a member of the curatorial team from 2003 to 2021. During her tenure, she organized numerous exhibitions, including Close to Home: Creativity in Crisis, which highlights seven Bay Area artists’ responses to the crises of 2020. Other recent major projects include Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene (2019), the first survey exhibition of this nineteenth-century photographer-archaeologist, and the major retrospective Dawoud Bey: An American Project (2020, co-organized with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York). Recent writing projects include an essay on Imogen Cunningham’s portrait of painter David Park (SFMOMA, 2020); entries on early women photographers in California (Une histoire des femmes photographes mondiale, 2020); and a consideration of the place of the laboring body in the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, Etienne-Jules Marey, and Clare Strand (Carnegie Museum of Art, 2020). She is currently at work on essays about Wright Morris, Anna Atkins, and the photo collective Rolls and Tubes. (Photo Credit: Don Ross, Courtesy of SFMOMA)

MaryMattingly Headshot Photo Credit  Cory Rice Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Mary Mattingly, Artist (Brooklyn, NY)
Panel: Remote Exhibiting

Mary Mattingly is an American artist known for her photography and public installations that address ecology, like a mobile free public food forest on a barge in New York City and a temporary reading room for estuarial plants on the Thames in London. Her photographs and sculptures are represented by the Robert Mann Gallery in New York. (Photo Credit: Cory Rice)

KevinMoore Headshot Photo Credit  Wilson Reyes Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator (New York, NY)
Panel: Remote Exhibiting

Kevin Moore, Ph.D., is a curator and writer based in New York. He is the Curator of the McEvoy Collection, San Francisco, and the Host of CUNY TV’s broadcast series Twilight Talks, as well as the Artistic Director and Curator of FotoFocus, Cincinnati. His recent exhibitions and publications include Old Paris and Changing New York: Photographs by Eugène Atget and Berenice Abbott (Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati/Yale University Press) and Mamma Andersson: Memory Banks (Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati/Damiani). He is also the author of Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970–1980 (Cincinnati Art Museum/Hatje Cantz) and Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist (Princeton University Press). (Photo Credit: Wilson Reyes)

MaryPanzer Headshot Photo Credit  N A Square 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Dr. Mary Panzer, Independent Scholar (New York, NY)
Panel: Signal and Event: Early Press Photography and Its Distributions

Mary Panzer, Ph.D., writes on American photography and is a specialist in photographic portraiture as well as 20th century photojournalism. She served as Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution) from 1992–2000. Panzer co-authored Things as They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955 and Separate But Equal the Mississippi: Photographs of H.C. Anderson; and authored Mathew Brady and the Image of History, Halsman, A Retrospective and Hine/55. Panzer’s work appears in many catalogs and essay collections. Her articles on Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Irving Penn, Eve Arnold and Stanley Kubrick appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Aperture, Vanity Fair, and the Chicago Tribune. Her upcoming exhibition, Fox Movie Flash: Street Photography in San Francisco, opens in March 2022 at the California Museum of Photography, University of California Riverside.

RafaelRomeroPena Headshot Photo Credit  Laura Canha Malpique Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Rafael Romero Peña, Multidisciplinary Artist (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Film Panel: Watching Movies with Subtitles

Rafael Romero Peña, is a Spanish multidisciplinary artist currently based in Rotterdam. Rafael’s work focuses on the intersection of anthropology, scenography, and film via the exploration of its sculptural aspects, in order to understand how collective memory brings significance to place and space. His work is collaborative by nature and has been exhibited internationally in Germany, the United States, and Hong Kong. (Photo Credit: Laura Canha Malpique)

ChitraRamalingam Headshot Photo Credit  Samuel Mather Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Dr. Chitra Ramalingam, Interdisciplinary Curator and Academic at Yale University (New Haven, CT)
Panel: Electricity

Chitra Ramalingam is an interdisciplinary curator and academic at Yale University, where she teaches in the Program in History of Science and Medicine. After a PhD in History of Science from Harvard University, she held research fellowships at the Science Museum, London and the University of Cambridge, and until 2021 was Associate Curator of Photography at the Yale Center for British Art, where she organized exhibitions on early photography, architectural photography, social portraiture, and more. She is author of To See a Spark: Experiment and Visual Experience in Victorian Science (under contract, Yale University Press), and co-editor of William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography (Yale University Press, 2013). (Photo Credit: Samuel Mather)

ErinSchaff Headshot Photo Credit  Daniel Pullen, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Erin Schaff, New York Times Staff Photographer (Washington, D.C.)
Panel: Breaking News

Erin Schaff joined The New York Times as a Washington, DC staff photographer in 2019, before that she had been regularly covering Capitol Hill for The Times and other news outlets. Her work has been recognized by the White House News Photographers Association, NPPA, and Time Top 10 photos of 2021 among others. She studied political science and women’s and gender studies at Kenyon College. (Photo Credit: Daniel Pullen)

KevinSchmidt Headshot Photo Credit  Holly Ward Square 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Kevin Schmidt, Artist (Toronto, Canada)
Panel: Remote Exhibiting

Kevin Schmidt lives and works between lands stewarded by the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples (now known as the city of Toronto) and the unceded territory of the Secwepemc (now known as Heffley Creek, BC). His practice functions as a critical and subjective examination of spectacle, looking at intersections between DIY culture and contemporary art production. His works often conflate and displace, providing new ways to examine genres such as landscape, “how-to” instruction, or museum display. Schmidt’s recent solo exhibitions include 2018’s We Are the Robots at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Reckless, a public art installation on the exterior of The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. In 2014 his work was included in the Montreal and SITE Santa Fe Biennials. In 2017 he received the Canada Council for the Arts’ 2017 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award. He is represented by Catriona Jeffries in Vancouver. (Photo Credit: Holly Ward)

CollierSchorr Headshot Photo Credit  Ari Marcopoulos Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Collier Schorr, Artist and Critic (New York, NY)
Keynote Conversation

Collier Schorr lives and works in New York, NY; Professor at Yale University.

Ms. Schorr has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and is represented by 303 Gallery in New York and Modern Art in London. Ms. Schorr’s work is represented in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Jewish Museum, and the Walker Art Center. She is recognized as one of the leading celebrity and fashion photographers, regularly contributing covers for Italian Vogue, T Magazine, and Harper’s Bazaar, amongst many others. Her essays have also appeared in catalogs for the Guggenheim Museum and the Boston ICA. Ms. Schorr has published eight books with Steidl and Mack books, and her newest publication August is set to release in spring 2022. She has taught at Columbia University, the School of Visual Arts, and Sarah Lawrence College. Ms. Schorr was appointed to the Yale faculty in 2003 and is currently senior critic in photography. (Photo Credit: Ari Marcopoulos)

AmyScott Headshot Photo Credit  Josh Tousey Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Dr. Amy Scott, Executive Vice President of Research and Interpretation and Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator of Visual Arts at the Autry Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
Panel: Signal and Event: Early Press Photography and Its Distributions

Dr. Amy Scott is the Executive Vice President of Research and Interpretation and the Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator of Visual Arts at the Autry Museum. She received her B.A. in Art History at the University of Kansas and M.A. from the University of Missouri Kansas City while working as a curatorial assistant at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. In 2000 she assumed the role of Curator of Visual Arts at the Autry Museum and in 2013 earned her Ph.D. in Visual Studies at the University of California Irvine before being advanced in 2019 to her current role. 

Throughout, she has curated several of the Autry’s signature exhibitions and core galleries including Yosemite: Art of an American Icon; Art of the West; La Raza; and Coyote Leaves the Res: The Art of Harry Fonseca. She has likewise contributed to books and catalogues on the art of the American West including Paul Pletka Imagined Wests (2017), La Raza (2019) and Art of the West (2018), published by the University of Oklahoma Press with a grant from the Luce Foundation. (Photo Credit: Josh Tousey)

ErinSharpNewton Headshot Photo Credit Elina Shchervinsky, FotoFocus Cincinnati
Erin Sharp Newton, Design Director for the Healthcare Practice at Posen Architects (New Jersey/New York)
Panel: Designing for People?

Erin Sharp Newton, M. Arch, is a Fellow at the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, and the Design Director for the Healthcare Practice at Posen Architects, LLC. She brings years of recognized local, national and international design experience into the world of design with a special passion for how environments impact mental health. Her unique experience and advocacy approach contribute a sharp, intense, and humanistic approach to the creative process with a mission to improve outcomes in the world of architecture, design, and culture. (Photo Credit: Elina Shchervinsky)

DavidVanDerLeer Headshot Photo Credit  Marcus Morris Square, FotoFocus Cincinnati
David van der Leer, Principal, DVDL (New York, NY)
Panel: Designing for People?

David van der Leer is a forecaster, educator, moderator, researcher, strategist, and writer. His passion is reinventing the institutions and public spaces of yesterday—and dreaming up the most inspirational institutions of tomorrow—through excellent design and interdisciplinary programs. Van der Leer founded DVDL in 2018 after having worked and consulted with institutions, government agencies, corporations, and individuals for 15 years. (Photo Credit: Marcus Morris)

DianaVargas Headshot Photo Credit  Lipa Ri Ri Photo Square 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati

Diana Vargas, Artistic Director of the Havana Film Festival New York (New York, NY)
Film Program

Diana Vargas is a New York-based film programmer and TV producer. She has been part of Havana Film Festival New York’s team since 2001 and its artistic director / programmer since 2003. Her tireless dedication to Latin American cinema includes programming multiple showcases taking place in New York throughout the year, such as CortoCircuito, the Latino ShortFest of New York, that since 2014 has another home in Cali, Colombia. Vargas is the Artistic Director of The Americas Film Festival NY (TAFFNY), the Ícaro Film Festival New York (a festival dedicated to promoting Central American cinema) and The Dominican Film Festival NY. She has curated the Ibero American section of HBO NY Latino Film Festival, the North American Indie section of the Lima Film Festival in Peru and, IndieBo, the Bogota Independent Film Festival in Colombia. Diana is the U.S. representative of the International School of Film and TV in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. She has also worked in several award-winning documentaries and written for different publications. As a producer for CUNY-TV series Nueva York, Diana has received 11 Emmys. She is also the co-creator of the new show LATiNAS, that highlights the accomplishments of Latino women in the U.S. She also works as the media consultant for several cultural events in New York City spanning film, music and theater. (Photo Credit: Lipa Ri Ri Photo)

Maye EWong Headshot Crop Photo Credit  Patrick Sison 1, FotoFocus Cincinnati

Maye-E Wong, Associated Press Photojournalist (New York, NY)
Panel: Breaking News

Maye-E Wong is a multi-award-winning photographer with The Associated Press Global Enterprise team based in New York. She joined The Associated Press in 2003 while based in Singapore, her home, later moving to New York City in 2018. From 2014 to 2018, she worked as The Associated Press lead photographer for North Korea, traveling to the country more than 35 times. Her photos of news and everyday life gave people around the world a deep look into life in the reclusive country. 

In 2017, Wong photographed Rohingya women who had fled Myanmar as part of an investigative piece on the rapes of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s military. The work won an Overseas Press Club Hal Boyle Award and the 2018 Ancil Payne Ethics in Journalism Award. She has documented major breaking news and sports events such as the political unrest that took place in Thailand and Hong Kong, the devastation of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Dhaka’s garment factory collapse, the Black Lives Matter protests in NYC, and documenting life across the US during the seismic changes of 2020. When not in the field, she works closely with photographers and other reporting teams to best visualize stories in multi-format digital presentations; some of these stories have won international prizes including the Pulitzer and the RFK awards. (Photo Credit: Patrick Sison)

#FotoFocus #FFsymposium #telephotography