Home and Homelessness

exhibition_home_homelessnessI am very grateful to have one of my photographs selected for this juried exhibition at the University of Maine, Orono. It is part of the Maine Photo Project, a celebration of photography across Maine. An image from the Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Emptiness project will be displayed. Continue to read the press release.

Orono, Maine — The University of Maine Department of Art will present two related exhibitions as part of the 2015 Maine Photo Project. A juried exhibition will feature the work of 19 Maine photographers, while “Young Photographers” will include work by 14 artists from Orono middle and high schools, as well as the Carlton Project and Shaw House, a Bangor shelter for homeless and at-risk teens.

“Visualizing Home and Homelessness” includes more than 60 photographs that represent investigations into the concepts of home and homelessness. The works will be on display from Oct. 9 until Nov. 13 in the Lord Hall Gallery on the Orono campus.

The public is welcome to attend an opening reception from 5–7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16 in the Lord Hall Gallery.

The photographs on display are an exploration of how humans experience and understand the concepts of home and homelessness. They encourage the viewer to ask challenging questions about their sense of place and identity and provide opportunities to consider different ways of thinking about what it means to be “at home” or “homeless.”

Works in the juried exhibition were selected by George DeWolfe, an internationally known photographer who resides in Maine; Elizabeth Greenberg, photographer and vice president of academic affairs at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport; and Laurie E. Hicks, UMaine art professor and Lord Hall Gallery curator.

Artists in the juried exhibition include Amber Andrews, Bruce Armstrong, William Ash, K. Scott Davis, Jon Edwards, Elizabeth Greenberg, Michael Grillo, Laurie E. Hicks, Regan Kenny, Sally Levi, Jes Lynch, Amy Pierce, Hans Nielsen, Heath Paley, Liv Kristin Robinson, Susan Smith, Alan Stubbs, Sarah Szwaikos and Meg Webster.

“Young Photographers” is the result of a service-learning project in which UMaine art education students worked with students from Orono schools and the Carlton Project, and residents from Shaw House, teaching them processes of photography and giving them opportunities to use photography as a means of communicating ideas central to their lived experiences.

Artists included in the Young Photographers exhibition are Lowell Ruck, Rebecca Gallandt, Daphne Murphy, and Brinsley Chasse from Orono High School; Anna Denike and Molly Booth from Orono Middle School; and Aaliyah Givens, Alex Santiago, Haley Stratton, Hannah Nickerson, Sarah Quinones-Bonilla, Jackie Barbera, Paul Oxman and Arwen Joseph from the Carleton Project and Shaw House in Bangor.

The exhibition is free and open to the public. Lord Hall Gallery is open from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Monday through Friday and is wheelchair accessible.

Visualizing Home and Homelessness is part of the Maine Photo Project (mainephotoproject.org), a statewide photography collaboration in 2015. The Maine Photo Project is organized and supported by the institutions of the Maine Curators’ Forum and is generously sponsored by the art museums of Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges, with fiscal management provided by the Maine Historical Society. The Maine Photo Project is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the Maine Office of Tourism.