Jaime Acosta Gonzalez, Postdoctoral Fellow (Riverside, CA)
Panel: After Allan Sekula’s Fish Story

Jaime Acosta Gonzalez is a President’s Postdoctoral fellow in the department of Hispanic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on the politics of aesthetics, thinking through how art and literature make visible processes of racialization and accumulation central to the historical development of capitalism. He is currently at work on his first monograph, tentatively titled “Landscapes of Dispossession: Latinx Photography and the Administered World,” which analyzes a set of contemporary photographers who mobilize the conventions of landscape to critique ongoing forms of economic dispossession, representing the emergence of infrastructure corridors, border walls, exurban sprawl, and tourist enclaves in Mexico and the United States.

Interested in landscape and the politics of land use, Acosta Gonzalez has participated in social movements to close down for-profit detention facilities and transition away from carceral solutions that disproportionately impact immigrants and working class people of color. (Photo Credit: Alejandro Gonzalez)

Lauren Bon, Artist (Los Angeles, CA)
Artist Spotlight: Lauren Bon

Lauren Bon is an American environmental artist and activist and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts. She created Metabolic Studio to explore self-sustaining and self-diversifying systems of exchange that feed emergent properties, regenerating the life web.

As part of a global art cohort addressing the current environmental crisis, Bon uses living systems and infrastructure to create durational, large-scale, place-based projects. Performance, photography, and sound activate these works and engage her audiences. Through her multidisciplinary approach, Bon has carved out a space between land art, conceptual art, and transmission art. Her questioning of the status quo and persistent alteration of civic infrastructure demonstrates the power of artists to provoke change and shape opinion through soft diplomacy.

Some of Bon’s works include Not A Cornfield (2005–2006), which transformed and revived an industrial brownfield in downtown Los Angeles into a 32-acre cornfield for one agricultural cycle, and 100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct (2013), a 240-mile performative action that aimed to reconnect the city of LA with the source of its water for the centennial of the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Her studio’s ongoing work, Bending the River (2011–), utilizes LA’s first private water right to deliver 106 acre-feet of water annually from the Los Angeles River to over 50 acres of land in historic downtown LA, a model ultimately meant to be replicated and form a citizens’ utility. Moving Mountains (2024–), a recent work of disturbance ecology, uses transplanted mountain soil rescued from the Topanga Canyon landslide to create a series of novel ecosystems along the industrial corridor of the Los Angeles River. (Photo Credit: Josh White, Courtesy of Metabolic Studio)

Monica Bravo, Assistant Professor at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
Panel: Photography’s Resource Dependencies

Monica Bravo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University specializing in the history and theory of photography. She is the author of Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico (Yale University Press, 2021), which was shortlisted for the 2022 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award from the College Art Association (CAA). Bravo’s next book manuscript, Silver Pacific: Early Western American Photography and its Mining Economy, is under advance contract with Princeton University Press and has been supported by numerous fellowships. Her publications have appeared in several journals including: American Art, The Art Bulletin, Art History, Art Journal, History of Photography, Modernism/modernity, and Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art, among other venues. Bravo was the inaugural co-chair of Photography Network, a CAA Affiliated Society. (Photo Credit: Sameer Khan)

Lee Ann Daffner, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservator of Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY)
Conversation: Lee Ann Daffner and Alison Rossiter

Lee Ann Daffner joined The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1998 and is responsible for the conservation and preservation of the Museum’s photographic collections, which are found in the Library, the Museum Archives, and the curatorial departments. Before joining MoMA, she held conservation positions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard University, the Library of Congress, and The Better Image. Through research and technical analysis, Daffner promotes materials-based scholarship and the assimilation of this content in curatorial and technical art history initiatives. From 2009 to 2015, she directed the conservation portion of the study of MoMA’s Thomas Walther Collection and co-edited the print and online publications for Object:Photo. Her current research focuses on Pictorialist darkroom studio spaces and she is co-curating A Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession, a collection gallery at MoMA with Oluremi Onabanjo. She received her M.A. in Art Conservation from University at Buffalo. (Photo Credit: Peter Ross)

Jill Dawsey, Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (San Diego, CA)
Panel: After Allan Sekula’s Fish Story

Jill Dawsey is Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD). She has organized over 20 exhibitions at MCASD, including For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability (2024, with Isabel Casso); Yolanda López: Portrait of the Artist, which completed a four-venue tour at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in 2024; Griselda Rosas: Yo te Cuido (2023, with Anthony Graham, Berkley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive); Carmen Argote: Filtration System for a Process-based Practice (2022, with Isabel Casso); and Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s (2022, with Michelle White, Menil Collection). Past exhibitions include Being Here with You/ Estando aquí contigo: 42 Artists from San Diego and Tijuana (2018, with Anthony Graham) and The Uses of Photography: Art, Politics, and the Reinvention of a Medium (2016, University of California Press). Prior to MCASD, Dawsey held curatorial posts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. She is currently teaching a seminar on art and disability at University of California San Diego and previously taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Utah, and University of California, Irvine. She attended Bryn Mawr College, the Whitney Independent Study Program, and received a Ph.D.in art history from Stanford University. (Photo Credit: Stacy Keck)

Dinah Devoto, Musician (Villa Hills, KY)
Red Cedars Performance and Reception

Dinah Devoto grew up in Western Kentucky, the 11th child of a strong-willed mother and a hesitant farmer father, inundated with tales of independent coal mines and garage moonshine. Her musical ability, born from her flavorful family history, was strongly encouraged and resulted in her unique voice and songwriting. With Patrick Kennedy, Devoto created the Red Cedars, a musical group well-loved for its authenticity and old-timey sound. They have two albums: A Dime and a Penny and Bottom Side of Blue.

Mitch Epstein, Photographer (New York, NY)
Keynote Conversation: Mitch Epstein and Robert Slifkin

A pioneer in fine-art color photography, Mitch Epstein has photographed the landscape and culture of America for half a century. A graduate of Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Epstein has been inducted into the National Academy of Design (2020) and was awarded the Prix Pictet (2011), Berlin Prize Fellowship (2008), and Guggenheim Fellowship (2002). Recent exhibitions include American Nature at the Gallerie d’Italia in Torino, Italy (2024–2025); In India at Les Rencontres d’Arles in Arles, France (2022); and Property Rights at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (2020–2021).

Epstein’s most recent exhibition, American Nature, assembles three self-contained yet integrated photographic series (Old Growth, Property Rights, and American Power); a multi-channel video-sound installation with tonal music by Mike Tamburo and Samer Ghadry (Forest Waves); and a looped projection with music by David Lang, performed by Maya Beiser (Darius Kinsey: Clear Cut). Together these five pieces investigate notions of wilderness, human society, and their collaborative and troubled co-existence.

Epstein’s mixed media work includes films, moving image with sound installations, and performance. In 2013, The Walker Art Center commissioned and premiered a theatrical rendition of his American Power series. Directed by Annie B. Parsons and Paul Lazar, the performance combined original live music by Erik Friedlander and live storytelling by Epstein, and included video, projected photographs, and archival material. In documentary film, Epstein was director of Dad and Retail (2003) and director of photography for India Cabaret (1988). He was production designer and co-producer for the feature films Mississippi Masala (1991) and Salaam Bombay! (1988).

Epstein has published 17 books, mostly published by Steidl Verlag, including Recreation (2022, 2005), Property Rights (2021), New York Arbor (2013), American Power (2009), and Family Business (2004), winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. His work has been shown and collected by museums worldwide including: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; Tate Modern, London; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (Photo Credit: Nina Subin)

Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI)
Panel: Photography’s Resource Dependencies

Kristen Gaylord is the Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum, where she served as site curator for Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron (2024) and organized Erin Shirreff: Permanent Drafts (2025). In 2026 she will open Widline Cadet’s first solo exhibition at an American museum as well as a major survey of the relationship between photography and extractive industries in the U.S. Previously, Gaylord was a photography curator at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, where she worked with artists including Stephanie Syjuco and Camille Utterback, brought landmark surveys of An-My Lê and Christina Fernandez to Fort Worth. Additionally, she co-organized Moving Pictures: Karl Struss and the Rise of Hollywood (2024), whose catalogue won Der Deutscher Fotobuchpreis. Gaylord also held multiple curatorial roles at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she contributed to exhibitions and publications including Stephen Shore (2017); Arbus Friedlander Winogrand: New Documents, 1967 (2017); and Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015. Gaylord earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. (Photo Credit: Ciara Elle Bryant)

Katy Grannan, Photographer (Big Lagoon, CA)
Artist Spotlight: Katy Grannan

Katy Grannan is an internationally renowned photographer and filmmaker currently living and working in Northern California. She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1991) and her M.F.A. from Yale University (1999). In Grannan’s decades-long career, her work has spanned the genres of portraiture, landscape, and fashion. Her photographs have been exhibited worldwide in museums, galleries, and private collections, and her award-winning feature-length film, The Nine (2019), was screened in film festivals, theaters, and universities worldwide. Dozens of art publications, fashion campaigns, and magazines have featured her work, including The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, among others. Grannan’s portraits of the seven incarcerated women profiled in “The Nuns Trying to Save the Women on Texas’ Death Row,” by Lawrence Wright, are featured in the 100th anniversary issue of The New Yorker (February 2025). Her photo essay and short film Are You Listening? were produced and published by The New Yorker in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. In April 2016, Grannan photographed President Barack Obama for the cover of The New York Times Magazine. Her current exhibition at Fraenkel Gallery features new work made in Northern California’s Humboldt County.

There are five major monographs of Grannan’s work: Hundreds of Sparrows (Nazraeli Press, 2017), The Ninety Nine and The Nine (Fraenkel Gallery, 2014), Boulevard (Fraenkel Gallery/Salon 94, 2011), The Westerns (Fraenkel Gallery, 2007), and Model American (Aperture, 2005). Her photographs are held in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the de Young Museum, San Francisco, among many others. (Photo Credit: Robert Lewis)

Danielle Jackson, Critic and Researcher (Bronx, NY)
Critic Spotlight: Danielle Jackson on Tulsa

Danielle Jackson is a critic, researcher, and independent curator. Her recent project combining the history of economic policy and photography was developed during her time as a 2024 Getty Museum Guest Scholar. She is the co-founder and former co-director of the Bronx Documentary Center, a photography gallery, screening room, and educational space. Formerly, she ran the Cultural Department at Magnum Photos. Jackson’s essays on art and politics have appeared in Artnet and CULTURED magazines. She teaches courses on visual culture and policy at Stanford in New York and New York University.

Patrick Kennedy, Musician (Petersburg, KY)
Red Cedars Performance and Reception

A native of Elsmere, KY, Pat Kennedy began playing guitar as a teenager and has practiced his craft ever since. He spent most of his life as a full-time father of four, but once the kids were grown, he made the life-changing decision to sell everything, build himself a shantyboat, move onto the Ohio River, and focus on writing and playing music full-time. His hard-hitting style transforms bluegrass into a sound which he calls “power folk.” Kennedy’s southern voice and finger-picking style has made him a local favorite. Besides the Red Cedars, he has had two other bands: The Shantyboat Trio and Hu-Town Holler, which has one album release titled Life’s a Freak. (Photo Credit: Jerry Burke Photography)

Katherine “Kappy” Mintie, Head of Collections at the Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ)
Panel: Photography’s Resource Dependencies

Katherine “Kappy” Mintie is an art historian whose work explores the material history of photography during the 19th and 20th centuries. She is especially interested in the production of photographic paper and its impacts on the environment. Kappy is currently Head of Collections at the Center for Creative Photography. She was previously the Senior Researcher in Art History at the Lens Media Lab at Yale University and the Robinson Family Curatorial Fellow in Photography at the Harvard Art Museums. She received her Ph.D. from the History of Art Department at the University of California Berkeley. (Photo Credit: Julie Wolf)

Alison Rossiter, Photographer (Atlantic Highlands, NJ)
Conversation: Lee Ann Daffner and Alison Rossiter

Alison Rossiter took her first darkroom course in 1970 at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where she learned techniques that became the foundation for her current work with expired photographic papers. Her interest in photograph conservation led to a volunteer opportunity at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2003. Afterward, inspired by observations of photograph conservation concerns, she assembled a vast personal collection of unused 19th- and 20th-century photographic papers purchased on eBay. Rossiter is the 2018 recipient of the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography.

Rossiter’s photographs are in the collections of major public institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; New York Public Library; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Rossiter currently lives and works in the New York City metropolitan area. (Photo Credit: Michelle Kloehn)

Robert Slifkin, Edith Kitzmiller Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (New York, NY)
Keynote Conversation: Mitch Epstein and Robert Slifkin

Robert Slifkin is the Edith Kitzmiller Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where he teaches modern and contemporary art and photography. He is the author of Quitting Your Day Job: Chauncey Hare’s Photographic Work (MACK, 2022), which received the Historical Book Award at Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France; The New Monuments and the End of Man: U.S. Sculpture Between War and Peace, 1945–1975 (Princeton University Press, 2019); and Out of Time: Philip Guston and the Refiguration of Postwar American Art (University of California Press, 2013) which was awarded the Philips Book Prize. His essays and reviews have appeared in such journals as American Art, The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, Artforum, Aperture Magazine, Burlington Magazine, October, and Oxford Art Journal. (Photo Credit: Amanda Durant)

Benjamin Young, Clinical Assistant Professor of Art History & Museum Studies at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
Panel: After Allan Sekula’s Fish Story

Benjamin J. Young is a historian of art and photography who teaches Art History and Museum Studies at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. His work addresses the role of contemporary art and documentary photography in economic globalization, political protest and human-rights activism, portraiture after humanism, and forensic aesthetics. His current book project is titled Sympathetic Materialism: Allan Sekula’s Photo-Works, 1971–2000 and he edited and contributed to “Allan Sekula and the Traffic in Photographs,” a special issue of the journal Grey Room on Sekula’s work. Young has written texts on artists such as David Antin, Eleanor Antin, John Baldessari, Harun Farocki, Fred Lonidier, Martha Rosler, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others. His essay on LaToya Ruby Frazier’s The Last Cruze, published in the exhibition catalogue from the Renaissance Society, situates her photographic survey of workers made during the closure of the General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio, within the broader history of documentary practices. Young received a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. (Photo Credit: Chelsea Haines)