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Nina Berman view images

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer with a primary interest in the American political and social landscape. Ms. Berman’s work has been extensively published, exhibited and collected. She is the recipient of two World Press awards, a 2006 fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and a 2005 grant from the Open Society Institute Documentary Photography Fund.

Her first monograph, Purple Hearts – Back From Iraq, a collection of portraits and interviews with U.S. soldiers wounded in the war, was published by Trolley in 2004 and received wide acclaim. The book was made into a feature length documentary film by the same name and screened worldwide.

Her work has been the subject of several solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and throughout Europe.

She is on the faculty of the International Center of Photography in her hometown of New York City.

Work Statement

These images are from a series I have been working on since 9-11 called Homeland. The images address issues of militarism, security and identity in contemporary America.

I embarked on the series to make sense of my own confusion over the words patriotism and security.

Why did I wake up some mornings feelings anxious, wondering whether or not to take the subway?

Was I being manipulated? Was my fear a genuine concern? Is my country my protector or my deceiver?

I set out to discover and in my explorations I saw Air Force bombers entertaining sunbathers on summer weekends; high schools taken over by the Department of Defense as a solution offered communities desperate for school funding; frequent simulation drills costing millions of dollars and involving thousands of participants where various war scenarios are imagined; recruitment scenarios where young children are transformed into smiling would-be killers.

Some of these events have the look and feel of state sponsored performance art, where realism is replaced by theater giving participants a powerful sense of identity and value through a militarized experience. It is this identity, and the ambiguity between real and made up, so emblematic of post 9-11 political discourse that interests me most.

I came to this series after having spent the last few years photographing very graphic examples of the human cost of war. Many of the subjects I photographed said they grew up thinking war would be "fun." Many watched the first Gulf War on TV and thought it was "awesome." Several said that becoming a soldier meant they would finally do something good in life.

Rather than continuing to show evidence of war, it seems appropriate for me to show the fantasies of war, the selling of war, the institutions of war, the culture of war and with it the militarization of American life.

Karolina Karlic view images

Karolina Karlic is a Minneapolis based photographer. Born in Wroclaw, Poland, her family immigrated to Detroit in search of the American dream in 1986. Karlic's work explores American culture from the complicated perspective of an immigrant growing up in urban Detroit. Her father fled communist Poland to find work in the American auto industry. Karlic watched her father's hopes for his family crumble alongside the stock of Ford, General Motors, and Daimler Chrysler's North American operations.

As a non-native participant in American society, her work explores the culture of people's desires and regrets. Karlic holds a BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has been published in the Water Stone Review, was a participant in Center 2007 (formerly known as Review Santa Fe) and most recently received the MN State Arts Board Initiative Grant, 2008. Her projects The Dee, Close to Home and Dear Diary have been exhibited nationally at galleries including Franklin Art Works, Jen Bekman Gallery NYC, Intermedia Arts, Flanders Gallery, Wall Space-Seattle, and Juxtaposition Arts.

Work Statement

Dear Diary resides within the ideas of desire and regret. It started as an investigation of an Internet classifieds section, Missed Connections, on Craigslist. This is where people anonymously post recollections of what may have been, or a special moment or a connection with someone that was unfortunately missed. I obsessively read these lost moments and became intrigued by the story telling which is continuously evident in what I like to call an online open diary. This is a place for fantasy, confessions, last chances, searching, and a home for one's own obsessions to surface. As I contacted subjects I realized that many stories existed on the Internet because they couldn't have a life anywhere else. Over time, the stories and people, painted a picture of how we communicate in modern day and our vulnerability as humans. The project came to a twist after a young woman living in Minneapolis was murdered after replying to a nanny posting, making it the first murder connected with Craigslist postings. I continued to work with the inspirations of other's personal stories to create images that circle around the idea of human lust.

Brad Moore view images

Brad Moore was born in 1958 in La Jolla, California. His formal education consists of a Bachelor of Science degree in art with an emphasis in photography from Loma Linda University in Riverside, California. Afterward he attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. While in college and for one year after graduation, he worked as a photography and darkroom instructor at Loma Linda University. He then moved on to a photofinishing instructor position at Noritsu America Corporation in Buena Park, California. While at Noritsu, he also worked as an art director and headed up the company’s advertising department.

In 1984, he started a company called Aperion, Inc. They manufactured and distributed photographic color calibration products for photo labs. For more than 20 years he worked as president of Aperion, until selling the company in 2005. While running Aperion he also operated a commercial photography studio, specializing in advertising.

In February 2007 Brad showed in twelve group exhibitions throughout 2007, including participating in the Winter '07 edition of Jen Bekman's Hey, Hot Shot!, and a solo exhibition at the Point of View Gallery, NYC, in September. In February 2008, he will participate in Ne Plus Ultra, The Hey, Hot Shot! Annual, at Jen Bekman Gallery in New York City. His desire always has been to focus his attention on fine art photography, an endeavor he is pursuing full time.

Work Statement

These photographs were shot in modest, well-worn, suburban cities in central and inland Southern California. Built in the 50s and 60s, these cities provided a new home and future to a post-war population. While Southern California’s coastal cities flourish, cities in these inland counties struggle. Future prosperity and civic health seem to come primarily from growing ethnic populations, which are reviving and recreating these cities for their communities.

I grew up in North Orange County and attended school in inland Riverside County. After 25 years I returned, and was fascinated by their simultaneous decline and growth. I see these areas differently from places I have never been. Knowing what was, and now what is, influences my approach. I’ve avoided traditional, documentary-style photography; instead I have photographed select buildings and shrubbery in primarily static, symmetrical compositions, reflecting change, irony and evolution.

Birthe Piontek view images

Birthe Piontek was born in Leer, Germany in 1976. She earned a B.A. in History and German Language and Literature at the Universität zu Köln in 1997, and received her M.A. in Communication Design and Photography from the Universität Duisburg-Essen in 2004.

Piontek’s work has been exhibited internationally, and has been featured in publications including The New York Times Magazine, Spex, Stern, Western Living, and Die Zeit. She has received numerous awards, and was named a finalist for the Santa Fe Prize in Photography in 2007. Piontek lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Work Statement

Similar to numerous other photographers my first take on photography was rather journalistic. Inspired by artists like Jeff Wall, Philip Lorca DiCorcia, Anna Gaskell and the work of David Lynch my pictures became increasingly staged over the last years. In order to tell my stories, I frequently use a combination of portraits and stills, which currently constitute the lion’s share of my work.

Two subjects have always been of great interest to me: innocence and adolescence – both of which playing major roles in my latest project Sub Rosa.

The intimate moments captured in Sub Rosa oppose the innocent vulnerability of youth to otherwise rather somber settings. We are confronted with introductions and conclusions of stories from a world we once were privy to — all the while hinting at secrets and revealing none.