Interviews
Conducted by Holly Stuart Hughes, Independent Editor, Writer & Grant Consultant, Former Editor-in-Chief, PDN, on behalf of CENTER.
Shawn Michelle Smith
PROFESSOR OF VISUAL & CRITICAL STUDIES, THE SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
Race, Citizenship, and Self Image in 19th Century American Photography
You’ve written a lot about the history of photography and its relationship to shifting ideas about race, identity, and citizenship in 19th and 20th century America. You’ve also written about African Americans who were making and also commissioning daguerreotypes and cartes de visite before the Civil War. The work of nineteenth-century African American […]
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Will Wilson
PHOTOGRAPHER & PROGRAM HEAD OF PHOTOGRAPHY, SANTA FE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Troubling NDN Pictures: Challenging the Historic Representation of Indigenous People
With your Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange [CIPX] project and the Talking Tintypes app, you have used a 19th century wet-plate process to make portraits that challenge 19th century representations of Indigenous people. Why did you feel this vintage process was the right medium? The historic wet-plate collodion process evokes history and embeds my contemporary work with meaning […]
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Dyanna Taylor
DIRECTOR, CINEMATOGRAPHER, & DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Dorothea Lange: Documenting the Depression, Migration, and Forced Relocation
What inspired Dorothea Lange to get out of her San Francisco portrait studio in 1933 and photograph people on bread lines and others affected by the Depression? At that point, she was supporting her husband, Maynard Dixon, the painter, and her two young boys with her portrait work. Her portrait work was innovative and by […]
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Erina Duganne
PROFESSOR OF ART HISTORY, TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
On Artists Call, Arts Activism and Solidarity
Thanks for your work curating the exhibition “Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities. In your research into the Artists Call archive, what did you learn about the goals or mission of the artists in the group? Artists Call began through the initiation of a Salvadoran exile living in New York named Daniel […]
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Laura Wexler
CHARLES H. FARNAM PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN STUDIES AND WOMEN'S, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES, YALE UNIVERSITY
Women, Domestic Images, and Imperial Ambitions
Can you tell us what photos you plan to discuss in your lecture for The Democratic Lens on November 20? I’ve been working in recent years on two long projects on family photographs, and families and photographs. Within that arena, I’m interested in the ways that imagining family life helps restore the nation after the […]
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Anne Wilkes Tucker
CURATOR EMERITA OF PHOTOGRAPHY, THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON
On War Photography, and Empathy
In your public lecture on November 20, you plan to talk about “empathy as a perspective.” Can you tell us some of the images you plan to discuss, and what got you thinking about “empathy” in images of war. Let me walk you through the lecture. I’m a curator so I start with the photos, […]
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