2025 SPE Annual ConferenceSpeakers

Ace Lehner

Saturday, March 08, 2025 @ 9:00am, Tuscany D

Queer and Trans Collaborations as Methods of Adaptation and Survival

Dr. Ace Lehner is an interdisciplinary visual culture scholar and photography-based artist specializing in critical engagement with identity and representation. Lehner's areas of expertise include trans and queer visual culture and theory, critical approaches to... read more

C. Matthew Luther

Saturday, March 08, 2025 @ 3:00pm, Tuscany 10

The vernacular of chronic illness through image making.

Matthew Luther is a photographer and printmaker working in Riverside California. His project Canvas of Ruin explores the human relationship to land, the abuse of natural resources, and the connection to chronic illness. The project... read more

Joanna Madloch

Saturday, March 08, 2025 @ 1:30pm, Tuscany 10

Snapshots of Adaptation: The Photographer in Literary Narratives

Joanna Madloch is a New Jersey-based photographer, writer, and scholar with a PhD in Humanities. Currently, she teaches at Montclair State University, specializing in the creative process. She has authored over 30 scholarly articles and... read more

Spandita Malik

Thursday, March 06, 2025 @ 2:00pm, Tuscany 12

Jāḷī– Meshes Of Resistance

Spandita Malik (b. India) addresses gendered violence through expanded documentary and social-practice. Her work, shown at the Kemper Museum, Somerset House, Paris Photo, and Sharjah Art Foundation, has earned awards like Google's Creator Photo Fund... read more

Clay Patrick McBride, senior lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology, is recognized for his impactful portraiture, characterized by empowerment, authenticity, and grit. Integrating experimental techniques with a foundation in classical art training, he also draws... read more

Elizabeth McGrady

Saturday, March 08, 2025 @ 3:00pm, Tuscany 8

GRIEF: How We Sink

Elizabeth McGrady is a New England based artist whose work focuses on the intersection of the scientific and spiritual, drawing on her background in theoretical mathematics and the tenets of Celtic. She received her B.A.... read more

Nika McKagen

Friday, March 07, 2025 @ 9:30am, Tuscany 10

It All Goes Dark: Encountering the Supernatural + the Sublime in Silver Gelatin

Nika McKagen works with traditional wet darkroom photography, sculpture, and textile. Her work explores the sublime experiences that tend to occur at the edges of worlds, cultures, and languages, focusing on the intersections between digital... read more

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J. Molina-Garcia

Saturday, March 08, 2025 @ 3:00pm, Tuscany 8

GRIEF: How We Sink

Tesora Garcia (she/her) [born 1989] is a Salvadoran-American media artist, writer, and educator whose work is here to devastate the violence of the Global North. A citizen of the Global South and an American Dreamer,... read more

Teresa Morrison

Friday, March 07, 2025 @ 4:30pm, Tuscany 9

Collaborating with the Undead: Material Expression in Antique Photographic Paper

I teach traditional and alternative darkroom at California State University, Northridge. My art practice prioritizes camera-less processes, with concerted interest in photo-historical, expired, and obsolete materials. I maintain an evolving archive of expired photographic papers... read more

Dominique Muñoz

Friday, March 07, 2025 @ 2:30pm, Tuscany 10

Photographs as Thread

Dominique Muñoz is a visual artist whose photographs are deeply rooted in environments reminiscent of his childhood memories. Working with found objects, images, printmaking, and performance, his practice explores themes of assimilation, desire, family, and... read more

Heather O'Brien-Takahashi

Saturday, March 08, 2025 @ 1:30pm, Tuscany 11

Concentric Pedagogy: Queer/Feminist Critique, Active Listening & Third Classroom

Heather M. O'Brien - Takahashi is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and Assistant Professor of Cinema & Interdisciplinary Media at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She received an MFA from CalArts and a Director's Fellowship from the... read more