2026 SPE Annual ConferenceSpeakers

Mona Bozorgi

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 9:00am, Agusta

Materiality and Response-ability

Mona Bozorgi is an artist-scholar whose interdisciplinary research and artistic practice explore the correlation between representation and performativity in photography. Her research is intertwined with posthuman critical theory and focuses on the process of the... read more

Amanda Breitbach

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

Navigating the Polycrisis

Amanda Breitbach is an artist, educator, and mother. Her creative research focuses on relationships between people and land. Her current project, Oil and Water, examines conflicting interests on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Breitbach grew... read more

Lily Brooks

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

Navigating the Polycrisis

Lily Brooks is an artist and educator whose practice explores the traces of power and vulnerability in the landscape of the Gulf South. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Oxford American,... read more

Stephanie Brown

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

Reflecting the Times: Image-Making and Education in the Shadow of Genocide

Stephanie Brown, an Atlanta-based photographer and installation artist, explores identity and culture through her Jamaican heritage and South Florida upbringing. A graduate of SCAD (BFA Photography) and the University of Michigan (MFA Interdisciplinary Art and... read more

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Justin Carney

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 9:00am, Agusta

Materiality and Response-ability

Justin A. Carney uses autobiographical photography to question how death and grief affect familial connections--the bonds that keep a family together and cause them to separate, and how grief shapes an individual. Carney creates an... read more

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Angela Casagrande

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

Reframing the Lens: Identity, Dialogue, and Digital Pedagogy in the Photography

Angela Kahoali'i Casagrande is a New Mexico-based photographic artist and educator. Her work explores memory, using photography to reveal the seen and unseen. She teaches digital and analog photography, emphasizing storytelling and cultural representation. Casagrande... read more

Jacob Cecil

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 10:00am, Athens

A HUMBLE EPIC: High School students, Alec Soth, and longform photo projects

Jacob Cecil received a BFA in Sculpture in 2006 and MA in Teaching in 2007 from MICA. He teaches at River Hill High School in Maryland where he has been learning along with his students... read more

Lauren Cesiro

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 9:00am, Agusta

Materiality and Response-ability

Lauren Cesiro is a Lecturer in Art History at Farmingdale State College. She studies and teaches twentieth century American art, photography, and visual culture. Her recent research interests include representation and the body in photography,... read more

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Zulay Chang

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 2:30pm, Macon

Libraries and Archives: Catalysts or Cloisters for Photographic Education?

Zulay Chang is a Specialist in the Photography Collection in the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach of Art, Prints and Photographs at The New York Public Library. She provides reference service, catalogs original photographs, and... read more