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Past SPE Annual Conferences

Northeast Chapter | Conferences

SPE Northeast Chapter includes:
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont

Chair Joe Hocker
Vice Chair/Secretary Michael Zuhorski
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Past Conferences

Picturing Plurality

MICA - Baltimore, MD   |   November 03 - November 04, 2023

How might we create space for belonging, plurality, and multiplicity of perspectives?  What are the conditions necessary to promote critical creative dialogue among the photographic community?   


During this joint chapter (Northeast & Mid-Atlantic) pop-up event, we will examine how fostering communal relationships through photography elevates students, educators, and photography professionals alike, and stimulates an environment that helps push forward photographic education and practice.   


Dates:  November 3–4, 2023
Location: MICA, Baltimore


SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (EST)
November 3, Friday
6:00 pm onward - Meet & Greet (informal, no tickets or pre-registration required)
Location - Baltimore Photo Space, 413 W 29th Street, Baltimore, MD 21211

November 4, Saturday
9:00- 9:45       Annual Chapter meeting
10:00 –11:00     Chris Metzger
11:15 - 12:15    Steph Foster
1:00 – 3:00        Andreas Laszlo Konrath
3:30 – 4:30        Portfolio Walkthrough   
5:00 – 7:00        Exhibition reception (details below)


All sessions will be conducted in a seminar or workshop format with the opportunity for a lively Q & A.


Exhibition Detailes:


Where: Full Circle FIne Art 33 E 21st St, Baltimore, MD  21218 


When: October 21 - November 18 Reception: November 4, 5pm to 7pm


Artists:  


Mariette Pathy Allen | Dilmar M. Gamero S. | Michael Sherwin | Syed Yaqeen | Julianna Foster | Liz Albert | Denis Sivack | Anshul Roy | Jerry Slough | Colleen Fitzgerald | Jon Malis | Robert Stone | Christiana Caro | Lynn Estomin | Sheryl Renee Dobson | Ally Christmas | Suzanne Gainer | Ellen Carey | Keavy Handley-Byrne | John Steck Jr. | Skyler Trigger | Joanna Madloch | Sarah | Alexander Heilner | Ashley Moog Bowlsbey | Justin Aungst | Joanna Knox Yoder | Maedeh Ojaghloo | Bruce Myren | Geoff Delanoy | Christine Lorenz | Michael Zuhorski | Eric Weeks | Adrian Cornelius | Elena Volkova | Dafna Steinberg | Joe Hocker | Chris Metzger | Lali Khalid

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- N/A, N/A   |   November 04 - November 06, 2022

"Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow." 
Imogen Cunningham


The drive to make photographs is something that unites us as a community. We feel Imogen Cunningham's excitement of thinking about tomorrow's picture and sharing her passion informs our lives. What we may not know is how to take that next step. This fall, the Northeast Chapter of SPE will host a virtual conference. Our title refers to the uncertain, the ambiguous; the next photograph one will make, the meaning of a single image, the path of one's life. On Nov. 4 and 5, we will come together to learn more about the work of two successful artists. Nona Faustine will talk about her exciting current project in a presentation moderated by Justine Kurland, and Odette England will speak about her prodigious work in book form.  And, to remind us where the excitement begins, we have invited six graduate students to discuss their work in the quick but demanding PechKucha format.


Years ago, a good friend told me I was lucky. I asked her why. She said because you have photography. Are you lucky? Please join us to share our good fortune, passion, and community, which cannot happen when we are alone.


 


To register for the conference, click the "view conference details" button at the bottom of this page, and then the registration link will be on the right side of the next page. After you register, you must also sign up ("register") for each event to generate a Zoom link to your email.


Dates:  November 4–5, 2022
Location: Virtual


SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (EST)
November 4, Friday
5:00–6:00 pm:  Meet & Greet (cocktail hour)

November 5, Saturday
12:30 – 1:00  Annual Chapter meeting
1:00 – 2:00    Nona Faustine with moderator Justine Kurland
2:15 – 3:15    PechaKucha: Justin Aungst, Rafael Concepcion,
                      Lily LaGrange, Yana Nosenko, Allie Tsubota, Baillie Vensel
3:30 – 4:30    Odette England: Photo Book-Ish


All sessions will be conducted in a webinar format with the opportunity for a lively Q & A.

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Multiple Exposures

- Sponsored by Ithaca College, NY   |   November 05 - November 06, 2021

Multiple Exposures: A Virtual Conference
As we continue to adapt and adopt new ways of thinking, living, and working in a (still) pandemic world, how do we reconsider our ways of moving our work into our communities and the larger world? What strategies might we employ to gain and sustain exposure for our practice and our work?


A physical juried exhibition accompanies this virtual conference at Ithaca College.


To register for the conference, click the "view conference details" button at the bottom of this page, and then the registration link will be on the right side of the next page. After you register, you must also sign up ("register") for each event to generate a Zoom link to your email.


Dates:  November 5–6, 2021
Location: Virtual


Physical Exhibition Location:  Photography Gallery, Ithaca College
Dates:  November 1–31, 2021


SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (EST)
November 5
4:00–5:00 pm:  Meet & Greet (cocktail hour)
5:15–6:15 pm:  Panel discussion with jurors (and exhibition preview)


November 6
1:00–1: 45 pm:  Mary Virginia Swanson:  Social Media Strategies: Being Followed, Being Found
2:00–2:45 pm:  Tate Shaw: Visual Studies Workshop: Distributing Artist-Educator Opportunities
3:00–5:00 pm:  Andreas Laszlo Konrath: The Zine as a Vessel: from URL > IRL (using the Web App shrimpzine)


All sessions will be conducted in a webinar format with the opportunity for a lively Q & A.

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Photography: Mentorship and Legacy

Rhode Island School of Design - Providence, RI   |   October 26 - October 27, 2019

Each photographer carries with them the photographers who have gone before - those who were our mentors and educators, and those we never met but who taught us nonetheless. In many ways, these are the first important steps towards building support and community for ourselves.


The 2019 SPE Northeast Chapter Conference will focus on photography's rich tradition of mentorship and legacy, and the ways in which we as educators continue that tradition in our classrooms. We are honored to have the photographers Doug DuBois and D'Angelo Lovell Williams giving a joint Keynote Presentation on Saturday night around the themes of our conference!



2019 SPE NORTHEAST JURIED EXHIBITION
We're excited to announce the artists included in this year's SPE Northeast Juried Exhibition. The exhibition was juried by our keynote speaker D'Angelo Lovell Williams and will be held at RISD's Red Eye Gallery from October 21st to October 27th. Please join us at the opening on Saturday, October 26th from 7-9pm.

Artists: Faith Couch, Gwendolyn Anne Davies, Anna Grevenitis, Keavy Handley-Byrne, Maxwell Harvey-Sampson, Lali Khalid, Adrian Martinez Chavez, Alyssa Minahan, Paolo Morales, Linda Moses, Nadiya Nacorda, Forrest Simmons, Denis Sivack, Aaron Turner, Matt Williams, Sara J. Winston, Leah Zhang, Jiawei Zhao

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Tipping Points

Global / Local / Personal

SUNY New Paltz - New Paltz, NY   |   October 06 - October 07, 2018

Announcement: Speaker Change


Due to unforseen circumstances, Sharon Harper had to cancel her talk on Sunday afternoon, October 7. We were unbelievably lucky to find an amazing replacement in Eric Gottesman, and are thrilled to hear his talk entitled Where Do We Go From Here?


Eric Gottesman is an artist who makes images and social interventions that address themes of nationalism, migration, conflict, structural violence, colonialism and intimate relations. Frequently engaging communities in critical self-expression, Gottesman's projects have been shown at health conferences, in government buildings, on indigenous reserves, and in public space as well as at museums like MoMA/PS1, MFA Boston, the Cornell Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Center of Photography, MoCA Cleveland, and the Addison Gallery of American Art. Sudden Flowers, his decade-long collaborative project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, resulted in temporary street installations and a collective monograph. Gottesman is a Creative Capital Artist, a Fulbright Fellow, an Artadia awardee, and a co-founder of For Freedoms, an initiative for art and civic engagement that won the 2017 Infinity Award. His translation of Ethiopian writer Baalu Girma's banned novel Oromaye was published in Hayden's Ferry Review. He is an Assistant Professor of Art at SUNY-Purchase College.




Congratulations to all the artists who were accepted into Tipping Points at the Palmer Gallery at Vassar College in conjunction with the 2018 Chapter Conference, juried by our Keynote Speaker, Paul Mpagi Sepuya.


Accepted artists: Michael Amato, Farimah Eshraghi, Brad Farwell, Ashley Gardner, Anna Grevenitis, Ileana Doble Hernandez, Defne Kirmizi, Dina Kantor, Cassandra Klos, Julie Mihaly, Jackie Neale, Soha Saghazadeh, Lorenzo Triburgo, Aaron Turner, Rhonda Vanover, Adrian Octavius Walker, Sara J. Winston, Jen Moon, Marc Ohrem-Leclef.

Tipping Points will be on view from Thursday, October 4 - October 25, 2018, with a reception during the SPE Northeast Conference on Saturday October 6 from 6-8 pm


About Tipping Points:
The world is facing unprecedented change on multiple fronts -- environmental, technological, sociological, psychological, and political. While historically things are always in flux, the exponential acceleration of so many factors is new to our age, as is the concept of humans propelling irreversible tipping points at a global scale. The world is facing unprecedented change on multiple fronts – environmental, technological, sociological, psychological and political.  While historically things are always in flux, the exponential acceleration of so many factors is new to our age, as is the concept of humans propelling irreversible tipping points at a global scale.


The 2018 SPE-NE Chapter Conference addresses the ways in which artists are responding to this rapid acceleration at global, local, and internal levels through photography and related media, and how the photographic medium itself might be implicated in these changes.



  • Tipping point (climatology), a point when global climate changes from one stable state to another stable state.

  • Tipping point (physics), the point at which an object is displaced from a state of stable equilibrium into a new equilibrium state that is qualitatively dissimilar from the first.

  • Tipping point (sociology), the event of a previously rare phenomenon becoming rapidly and dramatically more common.

  • Tipping point (systems theory), signifies a critical point after which the system shifts radically and potentially irreversibly into a different equilibrium state.

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IS PHOTOGRAPHY ENOUGH? Interdisciplinary Approaches Beyond the Still Image

118 Elliot - Brattleboro, Vermont   |   November 10 - November 11, 2017

Is Photography Enough? Interdisciplinary Approaches Beyond the Still Image 
More than one trillion photographs are estimated to be made this year alone. With billions of phone-cameras in circulation, and the power to share images instantly and globally, can we still define a photographer, an artist, or even the medium itself? In a world permeated by the still image, how much does any single photograph or single moment matter? More and more artists are pushing the boundaries of photography by blending images with text, video, sculpture, collage, performance, and installation. Others remain drawn to the still image and interactions between a camera and the real world, maintaining that photographic staples like analog processes, books, and prints may be more relevant than ever.


Photography is a medium born out of technological progress, reinvented several times in its short history, and yet it continues to evolve. This raises important questions about its future for photographers and educators alike. The 2017 SPE-NE Conference considers the ways in which contemporary photographers integrate other mediums into their work as well as how artists from other fields are co-opting photography. What do we gain by working interdisciplinarily and what might we be losing along the way? Do pictures alone still have the power to affect change, to facilitate conversations, or to communicate emotions and ideas? Is photography enough?


Hannah Frieser - Keynote Presenter
Director of the Center for Photography at Woodstock


John Willis - 2017 Honored Educator
Professor at Marlboro College and co-founder of the In-Sight Photography Project


Carolyn Benedict Fraser
Out of Reach


Brad Farwell
Social Networks and the Construction of Identity: In Relation to Ralph Eugene Meatyard's The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater


Jordanna Kalman
Little Romances


Sarah MacWright & Jeffrey Smith
Through a Legal Lens


Billie Mandle
Common Places: A photography class where half
the students are 18 and half are over 80


Colleen Mullins & Bruce Myren
Shark Tank: Photography Book Edition


Joan O'Bierne
The Scarf: a presentation at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center


Eric Zeigler
Drones and 3D Printers: The New Photographic Research


Pecha Kucha - Imagemaker Presentations:
Michael Cardinali - In the Field
Andrea Frank - Image Resonance
Sarah Knobel - Stillness in the Moving Image
Katharine Kreisher - Family Stories
Danielle Owensby - Hidden in Plain Sight
Nadia Sablin - The Village

Is Photography Enough? Exhibition: 
Juried by Joshua Farr, Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Photography this exhibition will be held at 118 Elliot during the 2017 SPE-Northeast Chapter Conference. Exhibition receptions will be held during the Brattleboro Gallery Walk on November 3rd, and during the SPE-Northeast Conference on November 11th, and the show will be up November 3rd–26th, 2017. This exhibition includes 36 works by the following artists:


Anne Arden McDonald
Tony Attardo
Kristi Beisecker
Richard Cavagnolo
Monica Church
Rebecca Davis
Adrienne Defendi
Colleen Fitzgerald
Carolyn Fraser
Nicholas Gaffney
Audrey Gottlieb
Eui-Jip Hwang
Alysia Kaplan
Sarah Knobel
Katharine Kreisher
Janelle Lynch
Chris Maliga
Adrian Martinez
Andy Mattern
Sandra Matthews
Alyssa Minahan
Marc Newton
Marc Ohrem-Leclef
Nicholas Pollack
Sarah Pollman
Rachel Porter
Blair Rainey
Amy Shapiro
Richella Simard
David Underwood
Judy Unger-Clark
Emily Vallee
Nathan Wagoner

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Depth of Our Field: Collaborations and Partnerships in Arts Education

Penumbra Foundation - New York, New York   |   October 28 - October 29, 2016

Conference Dates: October 28-29, 2016
Conference Theme: "Depth of Our Field: Collaborations and Partnerships in Arts Education"
Host: Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY
Keynote Speaker: Mia Fineman, Associate Curator Photography, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Invited Speaker: Alicia Hansen, Founder and Executive Director of NYCSalt.org
Honored Educator: Henry Horenstein, Professor of Photography, Rhode Island School of Design


The 2016 SPE-NE Conference aims to consider photographic education as not just something that happens inside the classroom, but within the larger arts community. Many non-profit organizations, community centers, art collectives,foundationsandmuseums work with educators at all levels to ensure that those non-textbook experiences are accessible to our students.


SPE itself emerged at a time when academic art departments were beginning to offer photography in their curriculum. In recognition of this newly emerging field of academia Nathan Lyons, Beaumont Newhall, Aaron Siskindandother prominent artist-educators started this community that we are a part of today. SPE is not alone inthemission of furthering photographic education and critical engagement. Many other non-profit and arts organizations have the same passion for shared knowledge and arts education. This conference hopes to continue the collaborative conversation that started in Rochester back in 1962.

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Advocacy: Photography’s Role in Affecting Change

Photographic Resource Center - Boston, MA   |   November 06 - November 07, 2015


Conference Dates: November 6 - 7, 2015
Conference Theme: "Advocacy: Photography's Role in Affecting Change"
Host: Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, Boston, MA
Keynote Speaker: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
Honored Educator: Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Invited Speaker: Jane D. Marsching
Invited Speaker: Zach Stephens

This years conference is dedicated to the memory of Gary Metz.


Presenters and panelists: listed/linked to on the next page, including schedule


Evidence and Advocacy: SPE Northeast Member Juried Exhibition
November 5, 2015 - January 10, 2016
Reception: November 7, 6:30 - 9:00pm
Jurors: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Keynote Speaker, and conference Co-Chairs, Bruce Myren and Camilo Ramirez

* Please click the yellow button to REGISTER and for more info, including the complete SCHEDULE & REGISTRATION options (under "program guide") and HOTEL - linked to on the menu at the right. *

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ACCESSIBILITY: Ubiquity vs. the Sublime

Clark Theater, New York State Museum - Albany, New York   |   October 24 - October 25, 2014

It seems that everyone is a photographer. How do we as educators, find the balance between ubiquity and the sublime? How do we as students acknowledge the traditions of photography while being true to our own photographic acumen. The 2014 SPE-NE Conference hopes to address our omnipresent medium in its developing manifestations and evolving aesthetics, ultimately leading to an understanding of how these fit into photographic education and learning.

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REDEFINING INFLUENCE: Balancing relationships and evolving processes

PhoPa Gallery - Portland, Maine   |   November 08 - November 10, 2013

Our SPE Northeast Conference Redefining Influence took place at Maine College of Art in Portland Maine, November 8 & 9, 2013. We had about 90 attendees which made for a very intimate and engaged group. Lisa Kereszi closed the first afternoon with the keynote presentation of her work and influences. We finished the day with the MECA Photography Student show opening reception. We started Saturday with a screening of Stephen DiRado's film "Summer Spent," that he made while on a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2012. Once again lunch was provided to all attendees in the MCA cafeteria, allowing for continued conversation and socializing. The end of the day brought the presentation of the Honored Educator Award to Barbara Bosworth, long time educator from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Some of her former students, Justin Kirchoff, Bruce Myren, Cheryle St. Onge, and Michelle Sheppard, give odes to her teaching and there were not many dry eyes... The Conference wrapped up with a reception at PhoPa Gallery, Maine Media Workshops, Portland gallery space, showing work by the Workshops many educators. (Summary by Bruce Myren) Conference Chair: Justin Kirchoff

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EXPANSION: How photography has expanded since the 1960s

and what are we going to do with the unprecedented growth of images in the world?

Visual Studies Workshop - Rochester, New York   |   November 01 - November 03, 2012

SPE Northeast's regional conference opened with a pre-conference celebration of Hank Willis Thomas's show at VSW on Thursday night. We were delighted that so many of our attendees made it out that night to the opening and to pick up their badges early. One of the highlights of the weekend was Nathan Lyons, Joseph Jacobson, and Jessica MacDonald discussing the history surrounding Invitational Teaching Conference, and the founding of SPE fifty years ago.


The weekend ended with a look forward into the future of photographic education and the medium itself, led by Alison Nordstrom in the Dreyden Theatre at the Eastman House.

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