Documenting Intimacy: Self, Family, Community

Join New York Now: Home exhibiting artists Cheryl Mukherji, Laila Stevens, Dean Majd, and Amarise Carreras for conversation about the ways in which photographers intimately document themselves, their family histories, and their chosen families and communities.  Moderated by curator and writer Kristen Lubben, the panel will also explore immigration histories, queer intimacy and chosen family, self-portraiture, intergenerational dialogues, community-building through photography, and documenting against loss of history and memory.

About the Speakers: 
Cheryl Mukherji (b. 1995) is an Indian visual artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. In her work, Cheryl explores the idea of origin and inheritance, which is embedded in the figure of her mother and the family album, using photography, text, video, and printmaking. She is a finalist and the subsequent winner of the 97th Annual at the Print Center, Philadelphia, 2023 and a finalist at the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, 2022 at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, 2022 and a Workspace Resident at Baxter Street at Camera Club of New York, 2021. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at the Museum of the City of New York (US), The Print Center (US), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian (US), Baxter St. at Camera Club of New York (US), Capture Photography Festival (CA), Minnesota Museum of American Art (US), Huxley-Parlour Gallery (UK), Format Photo Festival (UK), Brooklyn Museum (US), Museum of Moving Image (US), International Center of Photography (US), Serendipity Arts Festival (IN), among others. Cheryl holds an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard College, New York, 2020.

Laila Annmarie Stevens (b. 2001) is a Black Queer Photographer and Youth Educator from Queens, NY completing her BFA at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Their portraiture is informed by their passion for honoring marginalized youth voices, described as a raw and intimate perspective. As a recipient of the 2020 Magnum Foundation: US Dispatches Award, Stevens has furthered the production of community-centered and socially engaged projects. Their work has been frequently published in The New York Times Metropolitan Section, National Geographic, The Nation, The Salt Lake Tribune, and Cultured Magazine, among other publications. She is a student of the Eddie Adams Workshop Class of XXXIV, a full-time member of Black Woman Photographers, Diversify Photo, and Scope of Work (SOW).   

Dean Majd (b. 1990) is a self-taught fine-art photographer and lens-based artist from Queens, New York. Born of Palestinian and Jordanian immigrants, he studied International Relations with a focus on the Middle East at City College of New York. Through his deeply intimate visual language, his work explores modern masculinity, the complexities of the Arab-American dichotomy, the Palestinian diaspora, human connection, and the overall human condition, touching on addiction, self-destruction, and collective and personal grief. He is passionate about cinema, immensely devoted to his friends, and a proud New Yorker. He believes that love, above all else, is the driving force behind everything he does.

Amarise Carreras is a photo based performance artist, utilizing photography for both documenting and observing while engaging in performative conversations. The results are images of quotidian moments and narratives that portal history, ancestry, altars and still lifes that are alive. The performative aspect is referential directly to a gentle and deeply personal connection to passed down knowledge from elders and traditions from the island, Puerto Rico. There is a long history of collecting objects that symbolize and represent a greater form, lineages, and sentiments. Upon inspection and study, each item narrates a space that invites the body; trans, queer, diasporic and migrant, to enter. These altars and images document survival while serving as a means to build new worlds and possibilities.

Amarise received their BFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018. They are currently published in Aperture Magazine, Nueva Luz, and have shown at El Museo del Barrio, Blue Sky Gallery, and will be showing at The Museum of New York this Spring.

Kristen Lubben is a curator, writer and editor whose work explores the intersections of photography, art and politics. Prior to joining the Magnum Foundation as its first Executive Director in 2016, she was Curator at the International Center of Photography in New York. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including triennials of contemporary photography and video, monographic surveys of socially engaged artists, and installations drawn from her research in historical archives, including the ICP’s collections of the work of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. She is the author of several publications, including Magnum Contact Sheets and Susan Meiselas: In History.

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