Press Release:
2016 WOODSTOCK AIR
The Center for Photography at Woodstock is pleased to announce our 2016 artists-in-residence. A total of eight residencies were granted to artists working in photography and related media.
They are Nydia Blas (Ithaca, NY), Tenzing Dakpa (Providence, RI), Juan Giraldo (Chicago, IL), Ina Jang (Brooklyn, NY), Ke Peng (Los Angeles, CA), Sheida Soleimani (Cranston, RI), Jared Thorne (Columbus, OH), and Claire A. Warden (Phoenix, AZ). Our 2016 residents were selected by a guest panel including Kevin Miyazaki (2015 Woodstock AIR), Suné Woods (2015 Woodstock AIR), and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (photographer, writer, and editor of The Great Leap Sideways).
Each artist will participate in a four week residency, scheduled through September. CPW’s artists-in-residence are granted housing, travel and food stipends, an honoraria, critical and technical support, and 24/7 access to professional workspace, including our digital imaging lab and black-and-white darkroom.
To learn more about WOODSTOCK AIR, click here.
The 2016 program is made possible in part with support from the Milton & Sally Avery Foundation, the Gunk Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with support from Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
DID YOU KNOW?
WOODSTOCK AIR has repeatedly been listed amongst the top residency programs in the U.S. See the list of the 20 top residencies on BlouinArtInfo. Or visit Format Magazine for the top photo residencies internationally.
NYDIA BLAS (Ithaca, NY)
Nydia Blas examines the concept of seeing oneself through the eyes of other people. Her photographs explore the ways in which girls become aware of the expectations of being gendered, racialized, and sexualized as they come to understand themselves. Blas holds a BS from Ithaca College and an MFA from Syracuse University. nydiablas.com
TENZING DAKPA (Providence, RI)
Tenzing Dakpa uses photography to create visual dialogues weaving loose, personal conversations with his subjects that sustain a sense of spontaneity. He says of his work, “My projects are not intended to affect communities or convey social messages. The subjects I have chosen to work with have always been personal in nature. In fact, when I look back at my images, I feel a sense of belonging as they talk about me and the spaces I come from.” He is a graduate from the Delhi College of Art and received an MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design in 2016. tenzingdakpa.com
JUAN GIRALDO (Chicago, IL)
Juan Giraldo says of his work, “I have always been interested in industrial landscapes and the people that live and work in these spaces… My photographs depict the lives of people that live there; their experiences closely mirror my own.” Born in Manizales, Columbia; raised in Paterson, New Jersey; and now based in Chicago; Giraldo documents the lives of those around him, seeing echoes of his own past in their stories. He received an MFA in Photography from Columbia College, Chicago, and a BFA in photography from William Paterson University. juangiraldophotography.com
INA JANG (Brooklyn, NY)
Ina Jang describes her photography as “playful, light-hearted, and dreamy.” She maintains a close connection between drawing and photography in that her photographs emphasize two-dimensionality. She weaves paper scraps into her images to rid them of unwanted elements, and add a sense of play. Of her work Jang says “I want my images to effortlessly create their own language, to contain their own dialect of cutouts and collages.” She received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and completed SVA’s MPS program in fashion photography. inaphotography.com
KE PENG (Los Angeles, CA)
Ke Peng’s work explores the ways in which differences connect. She searches for contradictions, such as the distinctions found within similarity and the limitations and restrictions of spaces. Peng received a BFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design. She was raised in Shenzhen, China who now divides her time between Los Angeles and Southern China. kepeng.org
SHEIDA SOLEIMANI (Cranston, RI)
Sheida Soleimani’s work is overtly political and navigates the duality of her Iranian-American heritage. Her parents are political refugees, however, it was especially her mother’s stories of imprisonment and torture in Iran that politicized her views from a young age. Soleimani’s work focuses on Iranian political history and the victimization of women. Her vibrant photographs protest the infringement of human rights, and her use of compositional layers references both eastern and western perspectives. Soleimani received a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in photography from the University of Cincinnati. sheidasoleimani.com
JARED THORNE (Columbus, OH)
As a black artist investigating the culture of his own people, Jared Thorne seeks to challenge hegemonic as well as self-imposed constructs of Black identity in America and beyond. Recently he has been exploring the diasporic relationship between America and Africa. Thorne’s work centers on issues of race, social class and gender. He engages questions of authenticity, representation, and history, challenging the viewer to redefine his or her relationship to modernity. Thorne has an MA in Fine Arts from Columbia University. jaredthorne.com
CLAIRE A. WARDEN (Phoenix, AZ)
Claire A. Warden’s work investigates the internal and external forces that accumulate and compound identity. Having been raised in a family with diverse ethnic heritage, she was led to reflect on the fluid, abstract nature of identity. She uses saliva and manual manipulation as part of her photographic process; symbolic acts used to expose the biological and sociocultural forces that stimulate the emergence and performance of an identity. Her photographs allegorize the complexity of systems that make up an individual and the perception of self. Warden received a BFA in Photography and BA in Art History from Arizona State University. claireawarden.com
About our 2016 Panel:
• Kevin J. Miyazaki (2015 Woodstock AIR)
For the past decade, KevinMiyazaki’s work has addressed issues of memory, family history, and space, both personal and institutional. Miyazaki’s photographs have been shown at the Phoenix Art Museum (Phoenix, AZ), Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI), Rayko Photo Center (San Francisco, CA), and the Photo Center Northwest (Seattle, WA), among others. His work has been published in Nueva Luz and American Photography 23 by Kathy Ryan. As one of four members of the artist collaborative Milwaukee Comma, he focuses on making work in a variety of formats that examine place-making. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. kevinmiyazaki.com
• Suné Woods (2015 Woodstock AIR)
Suné Woods’s work questions how emotions can be used as creative material, how this differs from intimacy, and how emotion and intimacy might converge. As mixed media artist, she works with photography, collage, and video to engage themes of culture, genealogy, and history. Her work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (Brooklyn, NY), The Lowe Art Museum (Miami, FL), the School of the International Center of Photography (New York, NY), and Koplin Del Rio (Los Angeles, CA). She was awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Headlands Center for the Arts. Woods is currently visiting faculty with CalArts in Photography & Media. sunewoods.com
• Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (photographer, writer, and editor of The Great Leap Sideways)
Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa is a writer and editor of The Great Leap Sideways blog. The site is well known for Wolukau-Wanambwa’s concisely written commentaries on art photographers as seen in a wider context of contemporary photography. www.thegreatleapsideways.com