Join photographers Rita Leistner and Penelope Umbrico for "The Virtual and the Physical: Responses to Photography in the Digital Age," a discussion at the Photoville Pavilion moderated by ICP Dean of School Fred Ritchin.
Participants
Award-winning photographer, writer, and educator Rita Leistner's varied career has taken her from academia to war and back again, intersecting the genres of art, photojournalism, and literary criticism. She is a graduate of the International Center of Photography in New York and has a Master of Arts degree in comparative literature from the University of Toronto where she teaches the history of photojournalism and documentary photography. Her recent book, Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan, was shortlisted for the 2015 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology. She is co-author of several other books including Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq and The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story. Her photography has been exhibited and published internationally and her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines and books. Rita Leistner is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery. She has also planted over a million trees in Canada.
Fred Ritchin is Dean of the School at ICP, which serves more than 5,000 students each year in graduate, certificate, continuing education, and youth photography programs. Prior to joining ICP, Fred Ritchin was professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he continues to serve as co-director of the NYU/Magnum Foundation Photography and Human Rights educational program. Previously the picture editor of The New York Times Magazine (1978–1982), executive editor of Camera Arts magazine (1982–1983), and founding director of the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program at ICP (1983–1986), Ritchin has written and lectured internationally about the challenges and possibilities implicit in the digital revolution. He is the author of three books on the future of imaging: In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (1990,1999, 2010), After Photography (2008), and Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen (2013).
Penelope Umbrico says that in her work, photography is not only the medium but the subject. She explores photographic technique, the way we as a culture make and consume images, the people and things that are collectively photographed, and how context or presentation affects the way an image functions. Umbrico says that she works "within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects, and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments—but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities." Umbrico has participated extensively in solo and group exhibitions, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. She is a core faculty member in the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media Program.
About Photoville
Photoville on the Brooklyn Waterfront is built from repurposed shipping containers, combining photo exhibitions, outdoor photo installations, talks, workshops, and night-time multimedia events in our Beer Garden in Brooklyn Bridge Park runs from September 10–20, 2015 and is FREE for everyone to attend and enjoy!
