Kyohei Abe
Chief Curator, Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography
Detroit, MI, United States
detroitccp.org

Kyohei Abe is the Executive Director of the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography (DCCP). Established in 2010, DCCP began as the first non-profit center dedicated exclusively to contemporary photography in Detroit. With a mission to foster the appreciation and understanding of photography, DCCP works to promote contemporary lens-based artists who explore the medium in diverse ways: from still and time-based media to the photographic book. In 2012, after reevaluating how to better serve the artists it strives to support, DCCP shifted its operation to a solely online gallery supplemented by small edition artist book publications.

Abe is interested in reviewing developed and cohesive portfolios with strong concepts.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English and Japanese

Monica Allende
Artistic Director, Landskrona Foto Festival
London, United Kingdom
landskronafoto.org

Monica Allende is an independent curator, consultant and educator. She is the Artistic Director of Landskrona Foto Festival; she was GetxoPhoto International Image Festival Artistic Director from 2017-2019, has collaborated with WeTransfer as a Consultant and Creative Producer. She was the director of FORMAT17 International Photography Festival. And she is producing and curating Blue Skies Project, a multidisciplinary project with artist Anton Kusters and Ruben Samama exhibited during PhotoLondon 2019, currently showing at USHMM, and recently shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize.

Monica nominates photographers for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Prix Pictet, The Joop Swart Masterclass/ WPP; she is a reviewer and ambassador for Reminders Photography Stronghold in Japan and Docking Station in Holland.

Monica produced and curated Darfur: Images Against Impunity, an exhibition and a book by Stanley Greene, Lynsey Addario and Alvaro Ybarra Zavala. She is the recipient of the Amnesty International Media Photojournalism Award, the Picture Editor’s Award, the Online Press Award and Magazine Design Award for Best Use of Photography.

Monica is Interested in bodies of work focused on narration and with cohesive visual language, either following the documentary tradition of conceptual work with an emphasis in the intentionality. She is not interested in single images: still-life, portraiture or landscapes focused on form and style aimed at getting advertising, editorial or commercial assignments.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Spanish

Daniel Aycock
Founder and Director, Front Room Gallery
New York City, NY, United States
frontroomles.com

Daniel Aycock is the Director of Front Room Gallery, which he founded in 1999 in New York. Since its inception, the Front Room has been dedicated to exhibiting artwork by emerging and mid-career artists with concentration in photography, drawing, conceptual art, video, audio art, sculpture and installation. The Front Room presents work that is innovative in practice and concept and challenges social perceptions while establishing a context to the familiar.

Daniel Aycock has curated exhibitions internationally, at universities, museums, artist residencies and art fairs. Aycock has been the invited guest juror and critic for ASMP, School of Visual Arts, International Studio Curatorial Project, FotoFest, and many others. In 2001, he started WAGMAG, Brooklyn Art Guide, a monthly printed publication listing all of the arts institutions in Brooklyn. He received his BFA in Photography from Texas Tech University and his Master’s Degree from the School of Visual Arts.

Aycock is not interested in reviewing nudes.

Alexa Becker
Independent Consultant
Contributing Editor, Kehrer Verlag
Heidelberg, Germany
kehrerverlag.com

Alexa Becker is Contributing Editor for photography and art books for Kehrer Verlag, a Germany-based publisher founded in 1995. After earning her Master's in Art History from the University of Heidelberg, she started her career at Kehrer in 2003, where she is responsible for selecting and acquiring new photography-related projects. Mrs. Becker provides artistic and marketing advice for photographers concerning the content and style of their work at several international portfolio reviews. She enjoys helping photographers and others appreciate the special qualities present in their work, in particular discovering novel, genuine visions of the world.

Mrs. Becker offers the point of view of a European art book publisher and
is familiar with the overall art and photography market. She is also a freelance consultant, advising and coaching photographers independently.

Mrs. Becker is very open to all kinds of photography with meaningful content. She is not interested in reviewing commercial work or nudes.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: German, English

Christopher Blay
Chief Curator, Houston Museum of African American Culture
hmaac.org

Christopher Blay is the Chief Curator of the Houston Museum of African American Culture. The Liberian-born American artist, writer, and curator was the News Editor at Glasstire Magazine from 2019 - 2021 and served as curator for the Art Corridor Galleries at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth for the ten years prior to Glasstire.

Blay’s writing credit includes art criticism, Op Ed essays, and interviews for the Fort Worth Weekly, Glasstire magazine, Nasher Magazine, and Art in America magazine, where he is a contributing writer. Blay has spoken on panels and individually at the Menil Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. He has also given public lectures at conferences such as the Texas Society of Architects convention in 2014, New Cities, Future Ruins in Dallas in November, 2016, and Texas A&M University in 2021.

Blay has served on jury panels for the Nasher Sculpture Center, Southern Methodist University Meadows Museum's Moss/Chumley award, Big Medium’s Tito’s Prize, as well as numerous University gallery exhibitions including the recent student exhibitions at Texas State University in San Marcos, and the Juried Members exhibition of the South Central Chapter of the Society for Photographic Education in Dallas.

Blay's work was most recently seen at the UT Dallas SP/N gallery and will be the focus of a solo exhibition at the Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas in the fall of 2022.

Blay is a 2003 Graduate of Texas Christian University with a BFA in Photography with a minor in Art History.

Howard Bossen
Professor of Photography and Visual Communications, Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, United States
comartsci.msu.edu/our-people/howard-bossen

Howard Bossen has curated several exhibitions that grew out of meeting photographers at FotoFest and published articles that deal with the works of photographers he first met at FotoFest. Detroit Resurgent, a book he co-edited and was published in 2014, features the portraits of Gilles Perrin whom he met at FotoFest. He is the author of the books Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer, Henry Holmes Smith: Man of Light, and many articles on the history of photography.

Mr. Bossen is interested in looking at all kinds of work: color and black and white, documentary and photojournalism, modern, post-modern, conceptual, etc. He is especially interested in artist made and short-run books and work that explores the intersection of art and culture and art and science. He is not interested in reviewing advertising and commercial work. He will be looking for artist made and short-run books for acquisition by Special Collections in the MSU Library, and photographers to invite to the university to lecture or conduct workshops. He can provide curatorial insight on portfolios and advice on how to strengthen them.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Ashlyn Davis Burns
Co-Founder, Assembly
Houston, TX, United States
assembly.art

Ashlyn Davis Burns is a writer and independent curator based in Houston, Texas and the co-founder of Assembly, a gallery, agency, creative studio, and art advisory that holistically nurtures artists and their practice, while identifying and cultivating opportunities for collaborations with a global network of creatives in both the fine art and commercial worlds. Burns has worked to support lens-based artists for the past decade through curatorial, editorial, and fundraising initiatives, including most recently as the Executive Director & Curator of Houston Center for Photography (2015-2020). She has written for numerous publications, consulted with artists and publishers on photobooks, and curated exhibitions internationally for a variety of institutions including libraries, universities, and galleries.

She is most interested in seeing projects that create dialogue about our culture and that demonstrate a clear relationship between the form and content of the work. She is interested in talking through these ideas as well as presentation, installation, and publication approaches with artists looking for feedback on the development of a project.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Shane Lavalette
Founding Director, Assembly
Houston, TX, United States
assembly.art
shanelavalette.com

Shane Lavalette is a photographer and Founding Director of Assembly, a global platform supporting an innovative roster of artists. Previously, Lavalette worked as the Director of the non-profit organization Light Work. He holds a BFA from Tufts University in partnership with The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Lavalette’s photographs have been shown widely, including exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Aperture Foundation, Montserrat College of Art, The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Kaunas Gallery, Le Château d’Eau, Fotostiftung Schweiz, Musée de l’Elysée, and Robert Morat Galerie, in addition to being held in private and public collections. Lavalette is the author of four award-winning monographs: One Sun, One Shadow (Lavalette, 2016), Still (Noon) (Edition Patrick Frey, 2018), LOST, Syracuse (Kris Graves Projects, 2019), and New Monuments (Libraryman, 2019). Lavalette’s work has been featured by The New York Times, TIME, NPR, CNN, The Telegraph, Aperture, Foam Magazine, Hotshoe, among others, and his editorial work has accompanied stories in various publications, including The New York Times Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Esquire, Bloomberg Businessweek, Curbed, Vice Magazine, The Wire, Wallpaper, Monocle, The Guardian, and ZEITmagazin. Lavalette is represented by Robert Morat Galerie in Berlin and We Folk agency in London/New York.

MaryAnn Comilleri
Founder, The Magenta Foundation
Toronto, Canada
magentafoundation.org
magentafoundation.org/unstuck

The Magenta Foundation is a trailblazing charitable arts-publishing house that consistently showcases the work of talented artists on a global scale, drawing attention to under-represented and emerging artists with powerful exhibitions and a roster of impressive international publications.

Through its diverse programming, which includes book publishing, the UNSTUCK Photo Competition, an education program, and its latest addition of an arts book fair called /edition Toronto, the foundation is embracing the ever-changing art arena while forging stronger alliances with international galleries, curators, and artists.

Known and respected for her commitment to providing a platform for emerging talent, and for increasing the profile of under-documented, established artists, Camilleri is sought out to provide advice and guidance to individuals, corporations, and non-profit organizations. She is always looking for engaging projects that can translate well into an exhibition or a publication.

Whether projects are appropriate for Magenta’s publishing or exhibition mandate or not, Camilleri is happy to offer advice and encouragement in proceeding with projects in ways that will best suit an artist.

Camilleri is looking for well-developed bodies of work, which are either in progress or ready for publication or exhibition. She is also happy to provide advice to those seeking direction with projects in development, including editing and sequencing and marketing guidance. Camilleri is not interested in reviewing traditional documentary, classical nudes, landscapes, or commercial work.

Xavier Canonne
Director, Musee de la Photographie
Charleroi, Belgium
museephoto.be

Xavier Canonne is Director of the Musee de la Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium. He graduated from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, and received a doctorate in Art History and Archeology from the Sorbonne in Paris, writing his thesis on Surrealism in Belgium from 1950-1993. Canonne has managed his career in several fields between passion and professionalism: as an author, an artist, a publisher, an art history (cinema) professor, and as Curator and Director.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: French, English, Spanish

Lisa Woodward & Mia Dalglish
Co-Curators, Pictura Gallery
Bloomington, IN, United States
picturagallery.com

Lisa Woodward and Mia Dalglish work collaboratively as Co-Curators for Pictura Gallery, a non-profit contemporary photography space housed in the FAR Center for Contemporary Arts in Bloomington, IN. They have worked together for 13 years, producing a wide range of exhibitions and advising photographers through different phases of their careers.

Dalglish and Woodward are open to projects with the capacity to push past the boundaries of the frame and into broader installations. Pictura looks for opportunities to pair its photography shows with other creative mediums for some unexpected collaborations with poets, chefs, dancers, musicians, etc.

What they would like to see: excellent craft, a balance of aesthetic and conceptual concerns, emotionally meaningful work with well-considered ideas. Of lesser interest: still life projects of personal artifacts from the past, nudes, and strictly commercial work. They can offer critique and feedback to strengthen work aesthetically and conceptually. They can sort a new edit for consideration and help talk through ideas for display. Projects do not need to be completed to be considered but must show a high degree of thought and cohesion.

Woodward and Dalglish are looking for exceptional projects for the gallery’s 2024 exhibition programming and the Curious blog. If the work is a good fit for the gallery, exhibition opportunities may be offered at a later date. They welcome reviewees to bring any specific questions or goals to their session.

Malcolm Daniel
Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography, The Museum of Fine Arts
Houston, TX, United States
mfah.org

After 23 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he served as Senior Curator and Head of the Department of Photographs, Malcolm Daniel joined The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2013. Although his scholarly work has concentrated on the first 75 years of the medium, Daniel oversees the museum’s acquisitions and exhibitions spanning the full history of photography from its birth to the present day. His recent exhibitions and installations at the MFAH have included monographic presentations of Dawoud Bey, Fazal Sheikh, David Levinthal, Eugène Atget, and Sally Mann as well as an ongoing series, A History of Photography, selected from the museum’s permanent collection.

At FotoFest, he is most interested in reviewing the work of experienced photographers with several bodies of work under their belt, and is more interested in photography as creative expression than as documentation, no matter how worthy the cause (acknowledging, of course, that expressive and documentary photography are not mutually exclusive). He is not particularly interested in nudes, down-on-their-luck small towns, the final days of a beloved relative, or accidental abstractions made with 19th-century processes. Although the Museum occasionally (but rarely) acquires work seen at reviews, we are not looking for exhibition ideas or material at The Meeting Place. However, with nearly 30 years experience as a photography curator and a broad knowledge of the history, Daniel is able to help artists edit or sequence their work and can point to directions he feels most promising for future development.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Kathy Dowell
Director, Arts and Humanities Programming, Mid-America Arts Alliance
Kansas City, MO, United States
maaa.org

With over twenty-five years of creative and cultural production experience, Kathy Aron Dowell has worked as a museum director, curator, public art advisor, and large-scale cultural events producer. She joined Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) in 2013 as the Director of Arts and Humanities Programming where she directs all curatorial affairs for the organization, including oversight of its national touring exhibition program, ExhibitsUSA, which produces a diverse roster of projects that encompass topics in fine art, craft, folk art, photography, architecture, design, and fashion; as well as public art consulting services, curating the organization’s Culture Lab, and the development of pilot international programs.

Mid-America Arts Alliance strengthens and supports artists, cultural organizations, and communities throughout our region and beyond. Currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, M-AAA believes in more art for more people.

M-AAA is especially committed to enriching the cultural life of historically underserved communities by providing high quality, meaningful, and accessible arts and culture programs and services. A such, Kathy is most interested Mrs. Dowell is most interested in reviewing fully developed, bodies of work suitable for thematically-driven exhibitions that offer numerous opportunities for community engagement and dialogue. She is not interested in projects that are deeply coded and/or abstract. Please note, M-AAA’s exhibitions tour throughout the United States and are primarily produced to accommodate and support the work of small and mid-sized not-for-profit venues. Exhibits can include work by artists from anywhere in the world.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Burt Finger
Director and Co-Owner. PDNB Gallery
Dallas, Texas
pdnbgallery.com

Burt Finger is the Gallery Director and Co-Owner of Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery (PDNB Gallery) in Dallas, Texas. He and his wife, Missy, opened this gallery in 1995.

Before 1995 Burt was a private dealer in photography and antique watches. Prior to this, Mr. Finger has had many interests and careers. He served a tour-of-duty in Vietnam (1969) as an Officer in the Corps of Engineers. During his time in Vietnam, he met and worked with the famous photojournalist, Larry Burrows, who influenced his future in photography. When Mr. Finger returned to Dallas he pursued photojournalism. While he was a photographer in the 1970’s, he studied art and exhibited in various galleries in Texas including the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston. His work is included in the MFAH permanent collection. Burt also taught photography at North Texas State University (currently Univ. of North Texas). He and his wife began collecting photography in the 1990’s.

Mr. Finger’s current position as Gallery Director involves curatorial duties, appraisals, and corporate, museum and private sales. He has created well over 200 exhibitions including the milestone shows, “SHINE”, featuring antique shoeshine boxes, and vintage shoeshine themed photographs; “Pictures of Me”; and “Texas Bauhaus”. He also organizes exhibitions outside the gallery for non-profit galleries. In recent years he has appeared as a photography appraiser on the acclaimed PBS program, Antiques Roadshow.

Teona Gogichaishvili
Co-Organizer & Curator, Kolga Tbilisi Photo Festival
Tbilisi, Georgia
kolga.ge

Teona Gogichaishvili is a native Georgian and has lived in Germany for 22 years. Following her studies in German language and literature she studied photography in Cologne and at the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld and graduated with a Master of Arts in photography and design. Ms Gogichaishvili has been a photographer and lecturer at various universities and institutions since 2006. Since 2011, Ms Gogichaishvili has been the co-organizer of the international photo festival KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO in Tbilisi, Georgia. She has co-curated and co-ordinated diverse exhibitions and projects for KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO, including The Last Testament by Jonas Bendiksen, Le Petit Chaperon Noir by Sarah Moon, And Then There Was Silence by Jan Grarup. Since 2016, Ms. Gogichaishvili organizes and curates photo exhibitions in various German cities, including Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg. She is a member of the German Society for Photography (DGPh).

Ms Gogichaishvili is looking for interesting photographic positions for the KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO, but also for her free exhibition projects. She is particularly interested in documentary photography, reportage and conceptual photography. Ms Gogichaishvili is less interested in advertising, fashion and travel photography.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Georgian, German, English, Russian

Fabian Goncalves Borrega
Exhibitions Coordinator, Art Museum of the Americas
Washington, D.C., United States
museum.oas.org

Fabian Goncalves Borrega is primarily interested in reviewing developed and innovative bodies of work. All types of imagery are welcome for review, from documentary to landscape, still life to conceptual, including artist books. Aside from offering criticism and critique of the photography itself, its technique and conceptualization, Mr. Goncalves Borrega will evaluate whether the artworks are suitable for a solo or group exhibition at the AMA Photo Gallery. As part of the Organization of American States (OAS) Art Museum of the Americas (AMA), the Photo Gallery serves to promote the core values of the OAS by providing a space for dialogue and learning, highlighting themes such as democracy, development, and human rights.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Spanish, English

Mary Heathcott
Executive Director, Blue Star Contemporary
San Antonio, TX, United States
www.bluestarcontemporary.org

Mary Heathcott is the Executive Director of Blue Star Contemporary, where she heads its exhibition and educational programs. As San Antonio’s premiere nonprofit venue for contemporary art, Blue Star Contemporary presents more than 20 exhibitions annually, engaging international and regional artists through innovative exhibitions; a residency partnership with the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin; public programs; and the MOSAIC Student Artist Program, an after-school program for high school youth seeking professional development in the field of art.

Prior to joining Blue Star Contemporary in 2014, Heathcott was the Deputy Director at Artpace San Antonio, an international artist-in-residence program that has attracted more than 100 renowned artists and guest curators from around the world to explore new directions in their work, and provided a platform for exhibitions and education programs that further extend contemporary art dialogue. Heathcott received a master’s degree in the Humanities from the University of Chicago in 2001, where her research in art history culminated in a thesis exploring the history of stereoscope photography, Collapsed Elemental Perspective.

Heathcott is seeking conceptually-driven work that is socially-engaged, provides a personal viewpoint, or explores the boundaries of the medium and would be appropriate for presentation in a contemporary gallery space. Please no editorial documentary, fashion photography, commercial studio work, street photography, or book projects.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Jacqueline Sargoza McGilvray
Curator and Exhibitions Manager, Blue Star Contemporary
San Antonio, TX, United States
www.bluestarcontemporary.org

Jacqueline Saragoza McGilvray is the Curator and Exhibitions Manager for Blue Star Contemporary, where she has been since 2014. She is also a practicing artists with an MFA in Photography and Integrated Media from Ohio University and BFA from Texas State University in Photography. Prior to joining the team at BSC, Jacqueline’s arts administration experience included curating and designing exhibitions, collections archiving and research, curatorial writing, teaching undergraduate courses, and working with refugee and foster care youth, for organizations including Linda Pace Foundation (now Ruby City), Ohio University, The Art Institute, and Borderland Collective.

In addition to developing exhibitions for Blue Star Contemporary, Jacqueline has produced their online series Open Studios and The Artist’s Digest, developed important initiatives like the Novel Ideas Art Book Fair and Creative Classrooms–a program that sites working artists into K-8 classrooms that do not have art programs–and more. Since 2014 she has curated dozens of projects, and additionally serves as an artist mentor and juries projects in her free time.

Jacqueline’s curatorial projects develop through a collaborative approach with artists that is thoughtful and service-minded. Her projects reflect her commitment to diversity in many forms and methods and focus on sharing illuminating voices and ideas with her community. Jacqueline is enthusiastic about work exploring personal passions and histories. She champions artists who invest in their craft, demonstrating artistic excellence and material expertise in balance with conceptual rigor. An archive of Jacqueline’s curatorial project can be found on Blue Star Contemporary’s website.

Stephanie Heimann
Photo Director, The New Republic
New York, NY, United States
newrepublic.com

Stephanie Heimann is the Photo Director for The New Republic, based in NYC. She has garnered several awards for the magazine, including a 2018 National Magazine Award nomination for feature photography and the 2017 Magazine Picture Editor of the Year award from the NPPA. A veteran photo professional with specialization in international news and the environment, Ms. Heimann has worked with many international and domestic editorial publications. She was Al Gore’s photo editor on his book Our Choice, the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. Ms. Heimann spent almost ten years as an expatriate in Hong Kong, Moscow, and Europe, where she began her career as a photo editor and photojournalist covering post-Soviet culture and the first war in Chechnya. Ms. Heimann has a special interest in long-term documentary projects, as well a wide array of photography genres including photojournalism, artistic narratives, conceptual still life, and portraits. Many photographers she has met through portfolio reviews have been hired, published, or exhibited within the various projects she is engaged in.

Ms. Heimann is not interested in reviewing fashion photography, or any pictures with naked women or naked men, especially anything that is art nudes.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Samantha Johnson
Executive Director, Colorado Photographic Arts Center
Denver, CO, United States
cpacphoto.org

Samantha Johnston has been the Executive Director and Curator at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center since 2015. She holds a certificate in Arts Development and Program Management from the University of Denver, an MFA from Lesley University College of Art & Design, and a BFA from Alfred University. Prior to joining CPAC, she taught photography and visual arts for 12 years at high schools in Boston and Denver.

She has curated exhibitions with contemporary artists such as Jess T. Dugan, Daniel Coburn, Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman, and Zora Murff. Samantha has served as a reviewer at Houston FotoFest, Review Santa Fe, PhotoPlus New York, Medium, Month of Photography Denver (MoP), Filter, and PhotoLucida. She has juried several exhibitions including Critical Mass and The Fence.

Samantha is interested in viewing both finished projects and works in progress. She is interested in all types of portfolios. Limited feedback can be provided to commercial portfolios, traditional nudes, or travel photography.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Haley Berkman Karren
Principal & Founder, Karren Art Advisory
Senior Curator, Exchange Art
Houston, TX, United States
karrenartadvisory.com
exchange.art

Haley Berkman Karren is an art advisor and appraiser with Karren Art Advisory as well as Senior Curator with Exchange Art, the leading fine art NFT marketplace on the Solana blockchain. She has previously held curatorial positions at the Menil Collection; the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Department of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Dallas Museum of Art; and the Pentagram Stiftung, Venice. She also has previous experience in auction houses, galleries, and art consultancies. She holds a B.A. with honors in Art History and Archaeology from Washington University in St. Louis, and an M.A. in the History of Art and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she focused on contemporary art and photography.

Karren is interested in reviewing conceptual photography, documentary photography, and work that utilizes historic and alternative processes. She prefers seeing portfolios that feature work from at least one resolved project, but is also happy to speak with emerging photographers. She is interested in speaking with photographers who are considering NFTs and would like to learn about the NFT space.

Languages spoken: English

Sunyoung KIM
Curator, The Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea
photomuseum.or.kr

Since 2010, Sunyoung KIM has been working for The Museum of Photography, Seoul (MoPS) as curator in charge of exhibition projects and international relations. She has worked with photographic artists from various nationalities and generations for exhibition projects. Recent exhibitions include The Centennial of Korean art photography 1920-2020 (2023, 2020); Michael Lundgren: Geomancy (2021); Brassaï, Koudelka, Giacomelli: Romantic Melancholy (2019; co-curator); Nature as a Playground: Korean and Nordic Contemporary Photography (2018; co-curator); and a series of exhibitions of emerging Korean artists. She also leads the program MoPS Talent Portfolio, which has partnered with FotoFest since 2019 by sending talented Korean photographers to the Meeting Place. This open call program serves to invigorate diverse modes of collaborations between young generations of artists and the museum.

KIM is particularly enthusiastic about contemporary mixed media photographic work, as her research interests currently focus on medium specificity and its latent influence on contemporary photographic practices in post-medium conditions. But she is expecting to meet with a broader spectrum of photographers whose work range from documentary to conceptual to experimental practices. As a museum curator, she can be helpful in developing visual strength of work to evoke productive dialogues related to the photo medium, and in discussing any possible ways to display works either in actual exhibition form or in publication.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Korean

Cathy Kimball
Independent Curator, De.Coded: A Human Atlas of Silicon Valley
Sammamish, WA, United States
kopeikingallery.com

With nearly 40 years of experience as a curator and arts professional, Cathy Kimball has curated dozens of exhibitions from large-scale installations to intimate presentations of works on paper. Currently, she is the curator for De.Coded: A Human Atlas of Silicon Valley, a social impact art project created at the intersection of art, technology, DNA science and community, developed by UK-based photographer Marcus Lyon. The cross-sector initiative brings together community assets in the form of digital content, a publication and an exhibition.

Kimball recently retired from the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, where she served as Executive Director and Chief Curator from 2000–2020. At the ICA, she was particularly interested in presenting the work of under-recognized, mid-career artists with exceptional bodies of work in all media. She was formerly the curator at the San Jose Museum of Art and the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts in Summit.

At the Meeting Place, Kimball is particularly interested in reviewing conceptual and/or multi-faceted photography projects.

Paul Kopeikin
Owner/Director, Kopeikin Gallery
Los Angeles, CA, United States
kopeikingallery.com

Founded in 1991, Kopeikin Gallery is an internationally recognized gallery of photography and contemporary art in the Culver City Arts District of Los Angeles. Kopeikin Gallery has presented exhibitions by photography’s modern masters such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Garry Winogrand, Nicholas Nixon, and Harold Eugene Edgerton, and contemporary photographers such as Jeffrey Milstein, Chris Jordan, Jill Greenberg, Kahn and Selesnick and Kevin Cooley. Following decades of exploring photography’s history, the gallery program has expanded beyond photography to include painting and works on paper.

Kopeikin is not interested in reviewing photographs of flowers or any Ansel Adams-like traditional landscapes.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Geoffrey C. Koslov
Owner, Foto Relevance, LLC.
Houston, TX, United States
fotorelevance.com

Geoffrey Koslov co-founded Foto Relevance, a gallery located in the museum district of Houston, Texas, for contemporary photography-based art. He is interested in the creative use of the many different genres of photographic expression. In addition to life as a gallerist, Geoffrey is a collector himself that also enjoys writing about photographers he meets who he finds are creating new and challenging work.

He served for many years on the Photography Acquisitions Subcommittee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), and the Board of Directors for the Houston Center for Photography (HCP). He was formerly a member of HCP’s Exhibitions Committee and a former co-chair of its Print Auction. Geoffrey has participated as a portfolio reviewer at the FotoFest Meeting Place, the Center for Fine Art Photography (CFAP), the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), The Medium Festival of Photography, Photolucida, Critical Mass, PhotoVisa, and ASmith Gallery. Other organizations in which he participates are the MFAH’s Photo Forum, and several photography critique groups, including Pixels&Silver, the Houston Inner Loop Photography, and the Houston Photographic Society.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Susan Laney
Owner & Director, Laney Contemporary Art
Savannah, GA, United States
laneycontemporary.com

Susan Laney is the director of Laney Contemporary, where she leads an ambitious exhibition program specializing in photography and contemporary art from both emerging and established artists with a focus on the South. Laney has curated exhibitions in galleries, colleges, and museums; seven of which were with Savannah College of Art and Design between 2014 and 2018 and included the photography exhibitions Jack Leigh: Full Circle, Low Country Photographs, 1972-2004 (2014), Elaine Mayes, In the Present: Five Decade (2018), Aint–Bad: Vision to Reality (2016) at the SCAD Museum of Art, and Kevin Cooley: High Water Mark at Trois Gallery, SCAD Atlanta (2016). From 2014- 2016, she was the curator of the visual arts exhibition for the Westobou Festival in Augusta, Georgia.

Her passion for working in support of the arts began with a part-time job at the Jack Leigh Gallery while attending SCAD. In 1998, she returned as the director, where she worked for 13 years. Laney’s expertise is often requested for collaboration with private and corporate clients in developing or enhancing art collections.

Susan is interested in fine art photography, particularly documentary work, alternative process, mixed media, experimental and conceptual work, with a special interest in work dealing with the American South. She is not interested in seeing travel and commercial photography.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Anna Lee
Photography Curator for Special Collections
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA
library.stanford.edu/spc

Anna Lee is the Photography Curator for Special Collections at Stanford University Libraries. She has taught, published, and presented on a range of topics, including vernacular photography and contemporary photographers working in the Midwest. Lee earned her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Chicago and has held teaching and curatorial positions at the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Smith College, and the Columbus Museum of Art.

She is interested in reviewing work that is guided by strong observation and driven by an interest in process. However, she is not interested in seeing work by photographers whose primary aim is acquisition by Stanford Libraries’ Special Collections. She can be especially helpful in identifying and framing the unique strengths of a project, as well as in suggesting ideas for editing and sequencing.

James E. Maloney
Private Collector
Houston, TX, United States

I have been involved in photography and collecting photography for the past thirty years. I am privileged to have served on the boards of directors of both Fotofest and the Houston Center for Photography. I am a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and am currently the Co-Chair of the Photography Committee of the Museum. In my other life, I am a trial lawyer.

I am honored to have been chosen as a reviewer for many Meeting Places in the past and to be asked to review at the Meeting Place in 2020. The opportunity to meet new artists, to see and to discuss new work is not to be missed.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Spanish, some French

Jaehyun Seok
Director, ArtSpace LUMOS
Daegu, Korea
artspacelumos.com

Jaehyun Seok was born in Daegu, Korea. His career can be summarized as a photographer, educator and curator. His past experience from working as a photographer for international publications such as The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Korean GEO has brought him where he is now. Seok co-organized the Daegu Photo Biennale in 2006. He has curated many international exhibitions, including Imaging Asia in Documents (2006) and Women in War (2014) for the Daegu Photo Biennale and has been a foreign curator for Dali International Photo Biennale since 2011, and Foto Istanbul (2015-2017). Seok received the Best Curator Award twice from DIPE in China, in 2015 & 2017. He has also participated in many international photo festivals as a portfolio reviewer, including FotoFest in Houston, Format Festival, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Koytography, and Festival de la Luz in Buenos Aires, among others. In addition to his work as an international curator, he recently opened ArtSpace LUMOS, which has exhibition space and a photobook library in Daegu, Korea.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English & Korean

Johan Sjöström
Curator of Exhibitions, Gothenburg Museum of Art
Gothenburg, Sweden
goteborgskonstmuseum.se

Johan Sjöström is the curator of exhibitions at Gothenburg Museum of Art in Sweden. The museum is one of the most important institutions for art in Scandinavia. The collections and temporary exhibitions range from Renaissance to international contemporary art, photography and new media.

Sjöström has curated some 40 museum shows with artists like Bruce Nauman, Laurie Simmons, Esko Männikkö, Isaac Julien, Julia Peirone and Yto Barrada at several Nordic museums. He has been invited to curate exhibitions, review work, and lecture at numerous international photo events, including European Central Bank Annual Photography Award, Germany; Rencontres d’Arles in France; FotoFest in Moscow, Russia; Fotofestiwal Lodz in Poland; Odense FotoTriennal in Denmark; Rhubarb-Rhubarb in Birmingham, UK; FotoBild in Berlin, Germany; Artphoto Image Festival in Bucharest, Romania; Bratislava Month of Photography in Slovakia; Skábmagovat in Inari, Finland and FotoFest in Beijing, China. He has lectured on photography at Hunter College of the City University of New York; Umea University, Sweden; Hanoi Academy of Fine Arts, Vietnam; Chung-Ang University, South Korea, Gothenburg University, Sweden, and Abo Akademi, Finland.

Sjöström is most interested in reviewing creative, conceptually oriented photography, video and new media focused on political, postcolonial and multicultural issues, postmodern landscape, and issues of gender, identity and sexuality. He is not interested in reviewing fashion, traditional documentary, classical nudes and landscapes, or commercial work.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Swedish, English

Lisa Volpe
Associate Curator, The Museum of Fine Arts
Houston, TX, United States
mfah.org

Lisa Volpe is the Associate Curator, Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Before arriving in Houston, she was the Curator of the Wichita Art Museum where she oversaw all areas of the museum's collection. Additionally, she held various curatorial roles at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA), and fellowships at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Lisa does not wish to see nudes and pure landscapes.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English

Manfred Zollner
Editor in Chief, fotoMAGAZIN
Hamburg, Germany
fotomagazin.de

Mr. Zollner has a degree in Mass Communications from Munich University and began his career as a film critic, working for various German film magazines. Since 1991 he has devoted himself entirely to photography. He started working for fotoMAGAZIN that year as Director of Photography. From 2003 till 2006 he was Editor in Chief of the bi-monthly magazine Photo Technik International (now published as Photo International). He returned to fotoMAGAZIN in 2006 as Deputy Editor in Chief and has taken over the position as Editor in Chief at the beginning of 2019.

Since 2012 he´s also the Editor of the annual fine art photography publication fotoMAGAZIN EDITION. In addition to his editorial work, Mr. Zollner is a regular contributor of essays to international photo book projects.

Manfred is interested in any kind of photographic work, as long as it shows an individual, creative and clever approach.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: German, English, French