FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Anna Van Lenten
347-243-0009
anna@cpw.org
Center for Photography at Woodstock Launches First Annual Kingston Photo Festival
Kingston, NY, July 10, 2023–The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is delighted to announce the launch of its first annual Kingston Photo Festival, in conjunction with Upstate Art Weekend, July 21-23. The free, weekend-long community festival will take place at CPW’s future headquarters at 25 Dederick Street, and will feature photography, film, music, and food.
The Kingston Photo Festival is a new event and the first of its kind in the region. It will offer a slate of dynamic and exciting workshops, portrait studios, screenings, and exhibitions, all centered on photography. It is also a summer block party intended to welcome CPW’s neighbors into its spectacular new building, the historic Van Slyke & Horton cigar factory in Kingston’s Midtown Arts District.
“We are thrilled to join the thriving arts community in Kingston and to welcome our partners and friends to our new home for a joyous summer block party,” said CPW Executive Director Brian Wallis.
Among the exhibitions shown at the Festival is photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally’s “Upstate Girls” (2004-15). This extraordinary collaborative project, installed in a steel shipping container, is one of the most fully realized documentary photography projects to explore poverty, incarceration, and social disenfranchisement across multiple generations. Kenneally, a Troy native, started photographing in her old neighborhood in 2004, applying her laser-sharp, loving, and sustained focus onto a group of girls from three extended families as they came of age on one block. Over the years, Kenneally built a long-form epic about how the history and economic conditions of post-industrial Troy combine to affect the choices available to young people. The exhibition is realized in partnership with FLOCKart by Collar Works of Troy, NY, a mobile gallery, residency, and arts education program in a renovated shipping container that connects diverse artists with urban and rural communities to learn, create, experiment, and unite around contemporary art.
Other festival features include booths for the public to make cyanotypes, get a tintype made, have their dog’s photo portrait made, a VR exhibit by My Kingston Kids, and much more. Also, there will be two film screenings: Bill Daniel’s classic short Who is Bozo Texino? (2004) and Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1993), a vivid look at the world of graffiti and the birth of hip hop. And lastly the first CPW Photobook & Zone Fair, organized by artist Juan Madrid, will present over 14 publishers.
The full schedule of events and vendor booths present for the weekend can be found cpw.org/kpf.
A variety of food and beer will be available at the Festival.
All-day activities on Saturday, July 22 run 11:00 – 7:30 PM. Sunday’s activities run 11:00 – 5:00 PM.
The Festival is free and open to the public, and features activities for all ages, especially teens and kids.
CPW thanks the city of Kingston for ARPA funds. This project is made possible, in whole or in part, with support from the federal American Rescue Plan Act funds awarded to the City of Kingston by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
About the Center for Photography at Woodstock
Founded in 1977, the Center for Photography at Woodstock is a not-for-profit arts organization with a two-fold mission: to support artists working in photography and related media; and to engage audiences through creation, discovery, and learning. At the heart of CPW’s mission is programming that is community-based, artist-centered, and collaborative. To foster public conversation around critical issues in photography, CPW provides exhibitions, workshops, artists’ residencies, and access to a digital media lab. In 2022, CPW relocated from Woodstock to 474 Broadway in Kingston.
Press images and interview requests
To request high resolution images for press reproduction and interviews, please contact CPW by clicking here.
Top Image: Brenda Kenneally, Patrice modeling pieces from The Creek and Rail Collection, 2018