The Crevasse of the Reich, photograph by Marisha Camp, 2011
The Cossacks, 2009
For Targets Unknown, Los Angeles-based photographer Stacy Kranitz inserts herself into the world World War II reenactment, inhabiting the role of Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. In mimicking this woman, a figure for whom she feels both abhorrence and affection, she unpacks the nebulous—and often disturbing— ethical region that lies between good and evil.
For In Extremis (bodies with no regret), Italian photographer Sandro Giordano dreams up elaborate scenes of falling, reveling in the instant of embarrassment that so often follows a public tumble. In these calamitous moments, the photographer interrupts the routines of recognizable characters—the surgeon, the churchgoer, the birthday girl—to reveal both the absurdity and pathos that bubbles beneath the surface of daily life.
For Danmala, Arizona-based artist Kathy Klein constructs vibrant mandalas from organic materials, including flowers and produce gathered from her friends’ gardens as well as her own Cornville farm.
Measuring Visual Disturbances #1
On an old plantation in Memphis, Tennessee, Elizabeth Moran investigates the spiritual history surrounding the farmhouse her family once owned. Stories of hauntings and feelings of an otherworldly presence have found their way through the family’s generations. Armed with her camera and the help of her aunt an uncle, who are both paranormal investigators, Moran sought to document the un-documentable spiritual energy in her series Record of Cherry Road.
Michigan-based photographer Sheida Soleimani was raised on her parents’ stories of the Iranian Revolution. As refugees who fled the country in 1979 with the emergence of Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic republic, they passed down tales of persecution and survival that made the faraway country vivid and real to her, although she has never visited herself. With National Anthem, Soleimani negotiates her contradictory feelings about Iran’s turbulent past, present, and future with violent and visceral collages that speak both to the suffering of its people and her own feelings about being an Iranian-American woman.
Christopher Payne‘s Squarespace website
Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, New York
With a background in architecture, New York City-based photographer Christopher Payne is drawn to abandoned buildings, neglected structures that jointly disclose forgotten chapters of America’s storied past.
Payne’s fascination with the antiquated and disused began with his documentation of the city’s outmoded manual subway systems, to which he was afforded unlimited access. In recent years, he has chronicled spaces ranging from the pervasive and once densely populated asylums of the 1800s and early 1900s to the eroded landscape of North Brother Island, where in the latter part of the 1800s, citizens afflicted with infectious diseases were quarantined from the remainder of the city. In his shadowy, evocative frames, America’s past becomes a mythical place, one that is both acutely fantastical and undeniably real. Here, the photographer illuminates the mysterious and haunting remnants of our shared history, playing the dual part of the detective and the preservationist.
In his more recent projects, Payne has turned his gaze towards contemporary America by capturing the inner workings of Astoria’s historic Steinway piano factory as well as New England’s older textile mills as compared with North and South Carolina’s more state-of-the-art factories. We spoke with the artist about his interest in both deserted and sustained industries and why he chose Squarespace to build his site.
For a series of portraits he now affectionally refers to as the “old babies,” California-based photographer Zachary Scott transforms a set of six children into elderly characters, with each youngster flawlessly inhabiting the role of the businessman, the grandma, the churchgoer, and even the old farmer.
Troy, Nine Months of Reborning
Mother Marilyn
For Mother Love, New York-based photographer Jamie Diamond immerses herself within the subculture of Reborn dolls, true to life artificial babies crafted from materials like vinyl, doe suede, glass, and layer upon layer of paint.
Housing development near Condon, Oregon © William Rugen / Offset
The edge of housing development in Cold Springs, Nevada © William Rugen / Offset
For Western Dioramas, Seattle-based photographer William Rugen documents the topography of a modern American West, countering centuries-old fantasies of national expansion with visions of suburban developments. Set against the grandeur of the natural landscape, these homogenous settlements emerge as American artifacts both bleak and arresting, desolate yet oddly enchanting.
For #SetintheStreet, New York City-based photographer Justin Bettman joins forces with set designer Gözde Eker to construct miniature domiciles throughout the city. Repurposing castoff couches, beds, tables, and bathtubs to build pop-up living, dining, and bathrooms, they bring the privacy and comfort of home to the public streets and avenues of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The Voracity is a collaborative project by photographer Anna Williams and a large network of stylists and art directors. Each narrative serves as a creative testing ground for the large-scale productions Anna shoots for her regular commercial clients.
