2026 SPE Annual ConferenceSpeakers

Stephanie Dowda DeMer

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

Witching Hour

Stephanie Dowda DeMer has an MFA from VCU and is the Emory University Arts Fellow. Her experimental practice explores the materiality of photography to address grief and climate catastrophe. She has taught at Wesleyan and... read more

Rebecca Drolen

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

Performing Strength: Exchanges between Feminist Art and Bodybuilding

Rebecca Drolen (b. 1983) is an artist and educator based in Arkansas. Her photographic work examines how individuals visually assemble their identities and the constructed ideals of gendered bodily performance. Drolen's practice blends photography with... read more

Matt Eich

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 9:00am, Atlanta 5

After the Glut - Photobook Publishing in the Age of Plenty

Matt Eich (b. 1986) is a photographic essayist working on long-form projects related to memory, family, community, and the American condition.

Matt is the author of three monographs. He teaches photography at The... read more

Dominique Ellis

Saturday, March 21, 2026 @ 3:30pm, Georgia 7

(WHEN THE DUST SETTLES)

Dominique Ellis received her MFA in Photography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2025 and uses photography to document environmental, cultural, and historical change. Ellis was awarded a U.S. Fulbright student scholarship for Egypt in... read more

Aaron Ellison

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

Science as Art/Art as Science

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

Theresa Emmett

Saturday, March 21, 2026 @ 9:00am, Georgia 6

Reciprocity Reframed: Co-Creating in the Light of Belonging

I am the founder and executive director of Four Youth, a nonprofit that integrates photography and visual arts into environmental STEAM education. My photography career began in 2004, and in 2013 I launched Four Youth... read more

Madison Emond

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

Camera-Making As Photographic Practice

Madison Emond is an intermedia artist whose practice focuses on building earthen pinhole cameras. She uses the photographic process as a method of gaining a greater understanding of the physical and spiritual constitution of Earth.... read more

Sean Fader

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 2:30pm, Georgia 6

Insufficient Memory to Queer American Memorials

Sean Fader is currently an Assistant Professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in the Department of Photography and Imaging. Fader's upcoming solo show will be at Brigitte Mulholland Gallery in Paris, where he... read more

Katheryne Flake

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 3:30pm, Atlanta 1

Soft Bodies: The Malleable Self

Kate Flake (Decatur, GA 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist and a 3rd year graduate fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They hold a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Georgia and utilize photography, textiles,... read more

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Chris Fraser

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

Camera-Making As Photographic Practice

Chris Fraser constructs environments modeled on historical image-making technologies, from the camera obscura to the magic lantern. These spaces put objects in dialogue with their images, sacrificing broad distribution for an experience of image that... read more

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