Interview With Juror Sara Yousefnejad

Sara Yousefnejad, juror for Multiple Exposures Gallery's current exhibit, Everything is Alternative, offers insight into her selections and why they make a remarkable show:

 Based on the title of the exhibit, Everything Is Alternative, did you know what to expect when you entered the gallery? I actually felt quite tortured by the title of the exhibit and found myself asking friends, family, and strangers on the Metro what their first thought was when I said Everything is Alternative. The answers ranged from blank stares to shrugs to babbled explanations of the grunge music movement; most were non-verbal responses of bewilderment. When I entered the gallery, however, the show made sense instantly. It would be a show with dissonant, deceiving, and creative photographic formats and processes, or contemporary photography practices and explorations. With all the different formats of contemporary photography, almost everything is alternative. 

The theme Everything Is Alternative was intentionally broad; in your experience, do broad themes make it easier or harder to put together cohesive shows? Broadness in theme does not necessarily dictate the ease or difficulty of putting together an exhibit. Themes that are open to interpretation, but simultaneously point to a specific element are the most interesting to me. In Everything is Alternative, the creative process itself is on display just as much as the content of the photograph. The photographic subjects in the show range from children to architectural ruins to hot peppers, but because the creative process is a major element in all the works, there is cohesion. 

Were there any techniques used in the show that were new to you? Were you drawn to any specific techniques over others? One technique that was new to me in the context of digital photography was hand-toning or hand-coloring. Susan Meyers put a digital image in Photoshop, converted it to a line drawing, printed it out, and then painted over it with watercolor. It looked like an original drawing/watercolor so I had to ask her what it was doing in the photo exhibit! Janet Matthews had an image with a similar process, but I could see the photographic origin of the image. Meyers' image had me stumped. 

I was really interested in Clifford Wheeler's image because of its relevance to contemporary culture, and I was tickled that we could exhibit it right where it was made. If you can, see the show when Clifford is gallery sitting. This is for maximum effect of the relevance of his work. *Of course all the MEG members are lovely and you should see the show whenever you can!

(c) Alan Sislen

What do you gravitate toward in an image? Were you looking for any common elements in the images you chose for the show? Medium and subject, and how they work together or against one another. In general, I am drawn to the idea of media advancing to the point where it begins to mimic its original formats. For example, Alan Sislen's infrared images had such soft textures that they resembled charcoal drawings. Alan's images depict decrepit architecture, which is of course an interesting subject when thinking about time, history, progress, and cycles. Before photography was born, artists would have drawn or painted these structures. As the years progressed, so did the media and "technology" to capture the structures. At some point photography became perfect, boring, factual, accessible to everyone--not just artists. Then artists began thinking about new and alternative ways to capture their subjects. Yes, the technology of the medium is still advancing, but the aesthetic cycles back to its origins and is reminiscent of drawing. 

Here's an everyday example: We used to write on paper notebooks, then typewriters, then word processors, then computers, then there was the tablet craze. Is writing on a screen with a stylus pen anymore advanced than writing in a notebook? Again, the technology advances, but you're in effect doing the same thing you did in grade school using a paper notebook. In fact, Apple calls computers notebooks. 

All the images in the show were about the medium as much as the message. Marshall McLuhan would have been all over this. 

You're going to Uganda this winter to teach photography to children for a few weeks. How did you get involved with this project? What is your goal for the project and how can people who read this support you? I work in development and fundraising for the Arlington Arts Center, but I am also invested in the educational programming we have for children. In the summer, I taught a digital photography workshop to middle and high school students. We focused on techniques related to composition and story-telling and used simple cameras to document the people and faces in our neighborhood. The class was actually part of an international photo exchange for children called This is My City. The opportunity presented itself to partner with the Arlington Academy of Hope in Uganda, and an instructor was needed to travel to Uganda and teach the workshop. I jumped at the opportunity! It will be my first trip to Africa, and my first time traveling to another country to conduct an art workshop. 

Most of the children in Uganda have never even seen a camera. None of them have access to cameras. So, the AAC is hosting a digital camera drive and we hope to take those cameras over to Uganda to be used in the workshop. If you get a new camera for the holidays, or you have an old one you don't need anymore, please email me at sara.yousefnejad@findyourartist.org. 

(Note: MEG is serving as a collection point for cameras. You can stop by between 11am-6pm (Thursday 2-9pm) to drop off your donation -- Torpedo Factory Art Center, 3rd Floor).

Everything is Alternative can be seen at 
Multiple Exposures Gallery
through November 30th.

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