2026 SPE Annual ConferenceSpeakers

Christophe Katrib

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

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

Christophe Katrib is an artist/filmmaker and teaching professor of film and digital production at UC Riverside. His work is guided by a commitment to truth, authenticity, and amplifying misrepresented and/or erased voices. His teaching empowers... read more

Ashley Kaushinger

Saturday, March 21, 2026 @ 9:00am, Agusta

Re-Remembering: Photography at the Intersection of Archive, Memory, and Identity

Ashley Kauschinger is an artist, educator, and curator based in Atlanta. Her work explores identity, time, and material. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at Georgia Gwinnett College and has exhibited internationally. She has... read more

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Lily Lagrange

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 2:30pm, Atlanta 5

Photography as Invocation: Mysticism, Gender, and the Act of Self-Authorization

Lily LaGrange is an artist working across photography, installation, and sculpture. She holds an MFA in Photography from Syracuse University (2024) and a BA in Economics from Louisiana State University (2018). Her work draws on... read more

Sonja Langford

Saturday, March 21, 2026 @ 9:00am, Agusta

Re-Remembering: Photography at the Intersection of Archive, Memory, and Identity

Sonja Langford (b. 1994) is an artist and researcher from the American South. An MFA candidate at the University of Connecticut with a BA in Art History from UNC Charlotte, her work spans photography, bookmaking,... read more

Jiayi Liang

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 3:00pm, Atlanta 1

Across the Long Season: Image-making as Labor, Resistance and Reclamation

Jiayi Liang is a Chinese lens-based artist exploring feminism, trauma, and photography. Through photo cutouts and landscapes, she examines how East Asian women's bodies are shaped by patriarchal structures. Liang is an MFA candidate at... read more

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Montenez Lowery

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 2:30pm, Georgia 7

A Darktown Cakewalk

Montenez Lowery is a multidisciplinary Black American artist and writer working in Atlanta, GA, whose practice explores Black identity, memory, and loss. Interested in photographic material and working primarily with alternative photographic processes, his recent... read more

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Ken Marchionno

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

Social Practice: Navigating Academia

Ken Marchionno is a Los Angeles-based artist, writer, and curator whose internationally exhibited, socially engaged work blends photography, digital media, and community collaboration. He's taught and spoken globally, worked with leading fashion photographers, published widely,... read more

Elizabeth McGrady

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

Witching Hour

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 Paganism. She received her... read more

Nika McKagen

Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 2:30pm, Atlanta 5

Photography as Invocation: Mysticism, Gender, and the Act of Self-Authorization

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