Online Group Exhibition - "Marks on the Land” - Winter 2024
Analog Forever Magazine is proud to present "Marks on the Land," an online group exhibition featuring 46 photographs created with film and analog processes, curated by Anne Leighton Massoni, Executive Director of the Houston Center for Photography in Texas.
Anne Leighton Massoni writes:
As I reflected on the images submitted, I first returned to the call for entry "The landscape reveals as much as it hides of our human past and present on its surface. Scars of birth and death alike on its land and waters; still open wounds of war and acts of unity centuries old as reminders but not always of lessons learned. Since the advent of the camera we have witnessed with the lens these shifts made on our planet and our contributions both subtle and overt."
With a bountiful collection of images to cull through, these words kept coming to mind: detritus, boundaries, wounds/scars (both healed and newly formed), protection (and at what expense and for whom), sublime, emblematic, bellwether, pathways, acrid (though mostly as it related to color schemes), regrowth, and reclamation. Sifting back and forth between images, relationships began to build and I hope you'll enjoy some of the visual connections being made between images and keep those words in mind as you scroll through the online exhibition.
The result of our presence on this planet is one that seems intrinsically at odds with nature and yet we are a part of "nature"; our presence is "good" if we celebrate and protect that which we deem beautiful, and "bad" when we don't. But humans aren't only good, we are fallible by our very nature - the likelihood that we will err is a given. And the likelihood that we will create is equally a condition of our existence. The images submitted championed our want and desire to create - to make a photograph as a reminder of what we've witnessed (as it is), to both champion and/or criticize, to celebrate and mourn.
GALLERY
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Anne Leighton Massoni is Executive Director of the Houston Center for Photography in Texas. Before joining HCP she was the Dean and Managing Director of Education at the International Center of Photography in New York City. She has held academic positions at Marshall University, Cornell University, Tyler School of Art, Washington College, Memphis College of Art, Monmouth University, and the University of the Arts.
Massoni graduated with a MFA in Photography from Ohio University and BAs in Photography and Anthropology from Connecticut College. Her work relates to ideas of both real and fabricated memories and identity, using a variety of film and digital techniques.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally including the H. F. Johnson Museum in New York, The Print Center in Philadelphia, The Sol Mednick Gallery in Philadelphia, NIH in Washington, DC, the Allen Sheppard Gallery in New York City, Newspace Gallery in Portland, Rayko in San Francisco, the East End Film Festival in London, England, the International Mobile Innovation Screening in New Zealand and Australia, and IlCantinonearte Teatri e Galleria del Grifo in Montepulciano, Italy. Recent publications of her work include ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art and SpostaMenti, an exhibition catalog of her series “Holding” and The Photograph & The Album, Published by MuseumsEtc in England. She co-edited The Focal Press Companion to the Constructed Image in Contemporary Photography with Marni Shindelman. As a fine art photographer, Polly has actively participated in national portfolio reviews, authored an artist book, and exhibited her work extensively in both solo and group shows across the United States. Her deep engagement with the art community extends to her roles as a juror for various exhibitions and a writer who prolifically covers photography and its practitioners, exploring the creative process and the vulnerability involved in exposing artwork in a competitive field.
In 2023, Polly embraced the role of Program Director at Photolucida, where she manages the prestigious Critical Mass international photography competition. Polly resides in Greenville, SC, with her beloved pup, Sadie Jane.