2026 SPE Annual ConferenceSpeakers

DM Witman

Thursday, March 19, 2026 @ 2:00pm, Agusta

Navigating the Polycrisis

DM Witman is a transdisciplinary artist employing photographic materials, video, and installation. Her practice investigates climate disruption-at the intersection of presence/absence, resiliency, and ecology-relying on both archival impulses and ephemerality. Her creative practice is an... read more

Vanessa Wood

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 9:00am, Atlanta 3

Cut Time: Collage and the Afterlives of Photographs

Vanessa Woods is an artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area whose practice, spanning photography, collage, and sculpture, explores themes of identity, motherhood, and gender. Since earning her MFA from the San Francisco Art... read more

Ruiqi Xu

Thursday, March 19, 2026 @ 2:30pm, Atlanta 1

Folded Histories - A Study of the Fortune Cookie Mythos

Ruiqi Xu is a lens-based artist from China. He holds a B.A. in Visual Arts - Media from the University of California, San Diego, and is currently an MFA candidate and teaching assistant in Photography... read more

Eric Zeigler

Saturday, March 21, 2026 @ 9:00am, Georgia 12

Science as Art/Art as Science

Eric Zeigler is Associate Professor of Art at the University of Toledo. Aaron Ellison is Senior Research Fellow Emeritus in Ecology at Harvard. read more