Photography is often described as a technology of alienation, and the camera a device that creates distance. And there is indeed something strange about creating a machine to look for us. Through the lens, we are often cut off. We are made strangers to each other and ourselves. In recent decades, the explosion of cameras and photo distribution systems has multiplied these effects a thousandfold.

The artists in this MFA exhibition, titled All at Once, have chosen to react to this torrent by rethinking the notion that cameras and images separate us. Each in their own way has turned the process of photography into a methodology for finding connection and community.

Each artist is refining a particular way of seeing. At a time where the porousness of national borders is being presented as a threat and the easy typifying of people based on appearance is the imagined solution, the complexity and empathy that these creators embody is more necessary than ever. The fact that they have evolved these visions in collaboration with each other is a testament to the unifying effects of photographic thinking and making.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Matthew Cohen
Ivana Larrosa
Minny Lee
Allyson Lupovich
Groana Melendez
Bia Monteiro
Martha Naranjo Sandoval
Matthew Papa
Verónica Puche
Katrina Lillian Sorrentino

The ICP-Bard MFA 2016 Group Thesis Exhibition Opening will be held Friday, April 1 from 6–9 PM in the Rita K. Hillman Education Gallery at ICP School.

Fingers poking through plant leaves
© Minny Lee
Black and white mountain range © Matthew Cohen