All right, let's do this. Peanut, if you're staying in the room, no talking. Hello and welcome to the PhotoWork Podcast, the talky and touchy-feely version of my book PhotoWork: 40 Photographers and Process and Practice. Published by Aperture. Hello, everyone. I'm Sasha Wolff, recording today from CPW in Kingston, New York, and joined as usual by my friend and producer, Mr. Michael Chovendalton. Hello, Michael.
Hi there. I'm surprised I'm not hearing hammering and construction in the background.
Well, A, it's very early. And I'm wiping the sleep from my eyes. And B, they mostly have finished with the studios. And I have to say, Seth and his gang did an incredible job. Um, the new studios here are really incredible. I don't know, actually, how many are rented out yet, but they did an incredible job. It's really— I mean, they just turned the 3rd floor into the most beautiful space.
So—
Of course, we're talking about CPW, which is the subject, the highlight of this episode.
Yes, it is. So, for this episode, I sat down, actually, in person, which we usually don't do, here in my little recording space. I had the 2 head curators from CPW, Adam Ryan and Marina Chao. We were all huddled around a little table here. It was quite cozy. And the occasion was the first ever Upstate Photography Biennial that is on view now at CPW. An incredible show that I loved so much that I asked Marina and Ryan to come on and talk about putting the show together. And then, of course, we get into— we sort of widen out into bigger topics such as, you know, CPW's very existence here in the town of Kingston, and how it interacts with and negotiates its place in this community. And it was wonderful speaking with them. Did you enjoy the conversation?
Yeah, there were a lot of good things in this show that really— I really connected with. And the big one, of course, is having this arts organization and thinking about its audience and thinking about being part of community as you were talking about. But it's also a really fascinating conversation about how this new CPW comes to be, including hiring of staff, like real nuts and bolts stuff, but in a way that explains the idea or does away with the idea of networking and really grows that idea of how you join something authentically, not just to sort of show up.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, no. So many of the people who work here, whether on staff, you know, full-time, or whether they are sort of part of the wider teaching community. You know, CPW has a lot of classes on offer, really wonderful classes.
Mm-hmm.
You know, are just sort of— I mean, I— this is gonna sound sort of wacky, but it's not. It's really— it's organic. It's holistic. So many wonderful artists hang out here, and— they wind up teaching.
Yes.
It's like they hang out here, they're part of the CPW community, and the next thing you know, they're teaching a class in some area where they have expertise, whether it's editing and sequencing, bookmaking, whether it's, you know, darkroom techniques. CPW now has a darkroom. I could go on. You know, look, I actually witnessed this, right? Because as we all know, my office is here. So I actually witnessed Folks hanging out, you know, these are people often that I know. And so, you know, all of a sudden, my— all our doors are glass. You know, I see someone walk by, and I sort of jump up, and I'm like, Sam, how you doing? Or Jackson, how you doing? You know, they're here because they've come to just talk with one of their friends, someone who works here. They're here. They're here for an artist talk. They're here to use some of the facilities. They have an incredible. You know, digital lab. They have bookmaking capabilities here. So someone's here to do something, and then they become embedded, and then they're teaching. And it's a really wonderful, really organic way of putting together a group who then, you know, form the backbone. And it's constantly growing. So it's really wonderful and beautiful to sort of see unfold. Yeah.
Yeah, and you do talk about it in the episode, but there is a feeling of welcomeness when you come to CPW that's different from— Absolutely.
With no membership.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to name names, but I remember walking into some New York City galleries and feeling the cold air rush over me.
Oh my God, the worst. Yeah, no. I mean, I used to always joke around when people would tell me that friends of mine would, you know, go to some big gallery in the city and then tell me that they, they sort of felt uncomfortable. And I would say, well, that's the point. You know, so many of those spaces, they're not interested in making you feel comfortable because they know you're not there to buy work.
Right.
You're there to use it as a museum space or, you know, an exhibition space, and they're not interested in you, right? I mean, a space like this is the exact opposite. But I think it's just, you know, great triumph.
Absolutely.
And just really encourage, as I always do when I talk about CPW, just really encourage people who are within a reasonable distance, whatever that may be, to come up and hang out.
We were just talking about the number of people who do visit, and the biennial show being no exception. It does attract people far and wide. Yeah, for sure. And that is part of that open and inviting, you know, air they have about them. Yeah, for sure.
Well, We're grateful to all of the wonderful spaces. You know, Aperture is going to be opening their new space very soon in September on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. And we have, of course, Baxter Street, you know, downtown on the Lower East Side, and CPPOU.
And who else?
Who else? There's so many.
Well, I'll give a shout out to New Jersey. Princeton Museum just reopened and it's gorgeous. And they're doing some really interesting programming. And they also do a lot of community Right. For sure. Educational programming as well.
So lots of great options. Of course, we just named like a million things on the East Coast, but plenty of things all over the country. Sorry. Wow.
Demerits.
It's like naming your favorite photographers. We're gonna get ourselves in trouble.
Lots of points between you and I, Michael.
All right.
Well, before we, before we get into any more trouble, why don't we get to the episode?
Well, before we get to the episode, we have to mention that we're going to take the month Yes. Yes, this is the time of year where things do get a little quiet and photographers go away.
Yes, we actually, we thought we had a whole bunch of shows lined up, but then we were— yeah, we got the brush off until September from folks. So understandably.
People are traveling.
Yes, that's fine with me. I have a house to build.
So I was gonna say, like, yeah, we have our time off. You're rebuilding a house and I'm getting ready to go back to work.
Yes. So it's all fine.
Yes.
We'll be back with you, everyone, our beloved audience, in September with a lot of really, really great shows. So thank you for listening as always. And if you have not donated, I'm going to just take this opportunity to ask folks to remember that we are a nonprofit and we do rely on the kindness of strangers and friends alike. So you can always go to PhotoWork— what's our website?
Photowork.foundation.
Yeah, photowork.foundation. Oh man, it is early.
Yes.
You can go to photowork.foundation and support us. $10, $100, whatever you can give would be greatly appreciated. If you like the show and you appreciate What we're doing in general.
Well, people do like the show. I've been seeing some really lovely Spotify comments.
Oh, that's nice.
So yes, they do like the show.
Keep those comments coming. We do read those things. So of course, we get a lot of wonderful emails from people and always appreciate that so much. So thank you.
If anyone's wondering who's putting hearts on all those comments, that's me.
Yeah. Thank you, Michael. No, it's nice for folks to know that we've seen that.
Yeah.
It's nice. All right, Michael, if you don't mind, please take it away.
My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Adam Ryan and Marina Chao.
Adam Ryan, Marina Chao, welcome to the PhotoWork Podcast. It's so great to have you both on and We're together, which is amazing. We're actually in my office at CPW recording this conversation. We're all snuggled in together, and it's wonderful to be with you guys. Your office and my office are right across the hall from each other, so we're sort of like, you know—
It was a very easy commute.
It was so easy to get together to do this. Anyway, welcome to you both. Marina, of course, you've been on the show before. You were on the episode with Justine Kurland talking about About the Rose.
Yeah.
About the Rose.
I feel so lucky to be here twice.
Yeah, you're a two-timer now. And Adam, I can't believe that this is your first time. But anyway, it's so great. You actually did a fantastic class. I'm just gonna give you props for that on the podcast. You did a class with our fellows on writing about your work that was one of the best talks I've ever heard, not just on the subject, but in general. It was really fantastic. So we're gonna have you Thank you so much, Sasha. I have to do that again.
Thank you for asking me to do it.
Yeah, it was a joy. All right, so let's get into it. Adam, why don't we start with you? Tell folks a little bit about yourself and then Marina, and then we'll get into some bigger things.
Sure. So I'm a photography curator that has been working in the field now, I guess now for about 12, 13, 14 years. Somewhat unusually for a curator, I myself went through a photography school program. So I was an undergrad photo student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Great school.
Yep. Big school. Great school. If there's something you want to learn about photography, that's a good place to go.
Yep.
And as I was finishing up my undergraduate work, I realized that I didn't particularly want to live my life as a shooter, but what always brought me back to photography was a love for the medium's history. And so I was looking for ways to deepen that engagement with the medium's history, and I found a graduate program at the time called Photographic Preservation and Collection Management, which was based—
Oh, wow.
through Ryerson University in Toronto, which is now called Toronto Metropolitan. And it was an incredible graduate master's program where you did one year in Toronto and one year I was back in Rochester as a graduate student at the George Eastman House.
Right.
That was exactly what I wanted and exactly what I needed. It was a very object-based education about the entire history of photography. And it was very hands-on and practical training. It was the way the faculty used to describe it. They were, they were training the next generation of photography mercenaries.
Uh-huh.
Where you could kind of, you know, choose your own adventure and find a place for yourself in this field. And fresh out of that program, I was hired as a curatorial assistant at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, where primarily that job focused on a large retrospective of the late, great Twain Michaels.
Mm-hmm.
That show came and went. I found myself traveling west to San Francisco, where I became an assistant curator of photography at SFMOMA. And I spent a couple of years out there working with the collection and helping to build it and round it out. And then, uh, for personal family reasons, I had to come back to the East Coast and settled in Brooklyn. And we spent a couple years living in Brooklyn and decided to move to upstate New York, to the Hudson Valley, during the pandemic. My wife and I bought a house. We settled into that house after doing some renovations, and it was around that time that I needed to figure out what else I was going to do with my career. And I saw a press release that CPW, which had been in Woodstock forever, had relocated to Kingston, New York, and they had hired a new executive director named Brian Wallace. And Brian and I had never met before, but through some mutual friends, we arranged to have coffee. And pretty quickly, we started running through, you know, the people we knew in common and what our values are and what our interests in photography were. And He had only been on the job for maybe 2 months.
Right.
And there was a lot about the organization that he knew he needed to rebuild.
Yeah.
And so he offered me a job on the spot.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
It was a Friday afternoon, and then I started that Monday morning. And I just kept coming back.
That is so great.
Yeah.
And here you are.
Here I am. It's a couple of years later. It's a very different organization. We're in a new building. Our staff has grown. We're doing what I think are really superlative exhibitions.
Agreed.
We are punching above our weight class, I think.
And you and Marina are the curators here, although everyone does a lot of different things. So, but you two work together. to put together the exhibitions, although of course you also do stuff individually. And Marina, you want to give us a little background?
Sure.
Let's see. I studied art history as an undergrad, and it was actually Renaissance and Baroque, so it had very little to do with what I'm doing now as things go. And then I went right into graduate school and did a master's program at Columbia, which at the time a long time ago now, was very young, maybe in its third year. A program started— MoDA, it's called. It's a modern art program with 2 tracks, and one of them is a curatorial studies track. Sort of a program started by Rosalind Krauss back in the day. And the curatorial studies track, that program was one of the earliest ones. Now at CVNO, there are curatorial studies programs and the professionalization of the field is a little different almost 20 years on. But that was— it was early days. And so it was interesting working within a program that was so heavy in theory, having this very practical kind of addendum. But it was good. It brought me to the city. And after that, I went to MoMA as eventually a curatorial assistant in the Department of Photography, which was amazing training. Amazing, yeah.
Yes.
And then to ICP, which brought me to Brian the first time around. So Brian Wallace was then the Chief Curator at ICP and Director of Exhibitions, and I worked with him for a few years before ICP went through its sort of changes.
Yeah.
And then I took some time, 2 and a half years, where I went to the sort of commercial side of things.
Yeah, which is fascinating.
Market side of things. And I was a partner at Higher Pictures during a period during the pandemic and a couple of years out where I was partners with Kim Burris and Jenna Skye at Higher Pictures.
So I—
that was really a crash course. I learned a ton. Yeah, I'm sure it was crazy. Yeah. Amazing opportunity. And then for life reasons also, I left the city. We moved up. state, and people assume that I moved up for the job here, but that's actually not the case. It was just completely, uh, sort of, I don't know, one of those deus ex machina things. Like, this guy, like, here, here I am, you know? And here Brian was, and CPW, and all the wonderful colleagues here. So I couldn't have written it better.
Yeah, it's amazing.
Yeah, I'm very lucky.
It's really incredible. I mean, I think one of the wonderful things about Brian, the executive director of CPW, we're talking about, is his faith in his own sort of instincts and intuition about people. And, you know, he has— he's a man with very strong values, and he's very clear on the kind of environment he wants to create, he wants to be a part of. And I think he has the confidence to—
Right.
Bring on people who he's known for a while, like you, Marina, or Adam, like meeting you for coffee and just knowing. And frankly, like, when I walk around CPW and see everyone who works here, it seems like just meant to be. Like, it's such an incredible group of people who work here, and everyone just— I can't imagine anyone—
There has been a lot of serendipity along the way.
Yeah, totally. You know, I was thinking we'd start by talking about the Biennial, the big exhibition that opened recently here. But can one of you just give the listeners, you know, often they hear me refer to CPW, they, I think, know my offices are here, etc. But what is CPW?
CPW is a community arts center that focuses on the medium of photography.
Yeah.
And it is our job and our mission to provide expertise and knowledge and tools to photographers who want to take the medium as seriously as they can. And so it's important to all of us that if you come visit CPW, that you find something that is new. Maybe you haven't seen it before, but even if you have, maybe it challenges you in a new way. And if you want to learn something about photography, we want people to think of CPW as a place where they can come and learn.
And that learning, of course, you know, takes place in different ways. You can come through the exhibitions and learn about the language of photography, the people working in photography, and about the world through the photographs. But CPW also has incredible workshops and classes. It has a digital media lab that's incredible. The darkroom's just opened. Studio space is now available. So just to give people a sense of it, we're in an old— what is it, 40,000 square feet?
Yes.
We're in a 40,000-square-foot— it's actually the old cigar factory building from way back when. And so it's a beautiful old sort of historic building on 4 floors plus a basement. And it's It's incredible how quickly you all have built out this space. So the ground, the first floor is all exhibition space, absolutely spectacular. So it's about, what, 10,000 square feet of exhibition space? The second floor is offices, digital lab, darkroom. That's where we are right now on the second floor. The third floor is now studio space, which is just incredible. Fourth floor is Ray Meeks' domain.
Yes, our storage plus Rhea Meeks.
Rhea Meeks lives— doesn't sleep, but he's got his— he's our— the 4th floor squatter. We say that in all love because Rhea brings so much to CPW as a mentor and teacher to so many people who come through here. Anyway, so— and even joking about the 4th floor and friends who are like Rhea, who are around, I think says a lot about CPW. It is a community. community. We are a community here, so everyone is constantly working together, which is why PhotoWork Foundation has offices here, because it is just such a beautiful collaborative spirit, and we're all interested in the same thing, which is to promote photography as a way of learning about one another. about the world and to encourage practitioners and folks who are interested. So we can get back into some of the specifics of what goes on here, but let's, let's really talk about this incredible exhibition that you two curated and opened recently, the Upstate Biennial. Rena, you want to tell us a little bit about it?
Sure. I mean, that's the inaugural Upstate Photography Biennial. that we put together. It features 39 artists, one duo, 39 artists altogether. And it was kind of one of these things that, you know, we're semi-new in the building. We opened January 2025. And CPW has always been, I mean, really it was founded in 1977 as a space by photographers for photographers.
Mm-hmm.
And so I will say, and I often say this, that I'm one of the few staff members who who doesn't— maybe the only staff member who does not have their own photographic practice. I'm saying that, and then as I'm thinking, I'm ticking through, I think that might be true.
I don't know. I don't know. Brian might surprise you.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. We were talking about sort of doing a staff addendum to the Upstate Photography Man. I think I was maybe the only person who was like, ah, haven't taken a picture in a while. Yeah, but in any case, any case, this is what CPW was founded And it was really, you know, we opened even with the newly established Community Gallery, which is a program that we run concurrently with our exhibition, our broader exhibition program that's specifically dedicated. It turns around faster, much faster.
Yeah.
Once every month now. In the future, maybe once every 2 months. But it is a place for community organizations who, many of them do use photography in a way to do storytelling programs with local youth or other organizations that you might not even think would have a photography component, but they do, right? It's very, very obviously universal. And so that's a space that we opened up in January with a show called Free for All. And we just put out an open call and we said, anybody in the region, if you can bring your work to CPW, we will show it.
Yep.
over 300 submissions. We had to do 2 iterations of it. And so we knew, right, that there's a lot of appetite and creative energy and interest in showing, interest in being part of this community. And so all of this was leading up to, okay, so now we've gotten our sea legs a bit. We're still doing that. But now, you know, we know that this exists and let's put their work on the wall in a different way. You know, we're curating the show, we're selecting work, we're—
Mm-hmm.
sort of pulling out themes, though we didn't start with one. So it was just sort of to, to solidify our investment that's always been there in this area, and also that had been active since we opened in this space, but in different pockets of the organization, right?
And there are very well-known photographers in this exhibition. First of all, let me just say, this is, this is a top-notch exhibition. I mean, it's—
Thanks, Sasha.
Um, really It's really one of the best exhibitions I've seen in a long time as far as the quality of the work, the way the work works together, the way it flows through the space. And there's also real materiality— this is that word I can never say.
Materiality?
Thank you. In a lot of the work. So there's like some artists are really doubling down on that and this sort of tactile quality that photography can actually possess, but it doesn't feel disjointed. It's so cohesive. So how do you do that? You had so many submissions. How do you bring something like this together?
Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know if there's a magic bullet here. It was really just the endurance it takes to look at lots and lots of pictures all the time. So after we got over the surprise of getting all of those submissions when the building opened, We were ready to— we were anticipating a large response.
Right.
And so, 400 and— almost 430 people submitted their portfolios of work to be considered for the show. So, we just dug into it and we each sort of went away and we each did a separate first pass just to kind of look at Yeah. It was never a question of whether this individual's work is good enough, per se. It was really a question of bringing together a constellation of artists whose work can all hang together.
Right.
Yep.
And that takes repeated passes through all of that because there was so much incredible work that was submitted for this show. out of this one batch, we could have done 3 biennials.
Yeah.
So with the limit of the wall space we have, which is a lot. Yeah, it's, it's a big show. It is the biggest show that CPW has done. So we needed to balance the priorities of bringing in as many of the community as we can and getting their work on our walls while also providing enough space for the artists to show enough of their work that you could really get a sense of it.
Right. So there are a couple of examples, or I don't know how many, of artists who have one piece, one large piece, like Andrew Moore. Stephen, I guess— is Stephen's piece—
That's 4 pieces.
Yeah, 4 pieces.
One project. Yeah.
Who are some other folks who only have one or 2?
Ben Sloane has a small photograph paired with a large, large sculpture. Very large, yeah.
Right. Yeah.
A whole photomat.
But yes, for the most part, each artist has quite a number of pieces so that you— I mean, I have to say, this is so great. I mean, you like— I really, when I did my first pass through, I couldn't believe that I truly had a sense of— I don't know, a full sense of each artist because it's just one body of work, but I certainly had a sense of each artist's body of work, and that is so rare. So when did you decide, when did you commit to, you know, less artists overall, but more work from each artist?
I think we kind of knew from the get-go because we even phrased the very simple— we kind of left the submission process fairly open, except that we, we did ask for at least the submission process. It doesn't mean that we went with every single we went with the body of work that the artist submitted. It was— but we did want to get that sense. We wanted immediately just to dive in because you could do both ways, right? You could say, send whatever and we'll take a look.
Yeah, just let's see whatever you did.
Or a mix of things because people do do very different work, of course. And so they get— I think some artists probably feel that that's limiting in an open call situation. However, we really wanted to make it specific so that we could get a sense of a person's, an artist's approach, their value, like, you know, just their practice. Yeah, because you're sort of—
you are promoting the artist to some extent. I mean, whether you want to think of it that way or not, you sort of are. And you want to make sure, right, that each artist has a serious practice and it's not just sort of some one-off or—
Right. Yeah, because, um, One photograph is not enough to know a photographer.
No, exactly.
Like, no photographer lives or dies by the one image, right, that they've made.
Yeah, even one image, one representative image from various projects, right, can tell you a little something. But we really wanted to have the focus, the text to be focused, everything to sort of then be able to get as quickly as we could a good sense.
Yeah. What is, what is Is the work indicative of a larger and more thoughtful practice?
So I will say, though, that one Andrew Moore, really.
Oh, yeah.
That is—
that is—
there's so much in that one photograph.
Walk right into it.
I just loved—
He was very pleased when I, when I picked that one for the show.
Oh, good.
Okay.
He's such a lovely person. Yeah, I stood in front of that for quite a while. It's really mesmerizing. You said, one of you said in passing earlier that you didn't start out with a theme, but some things started to present themselves. So can either of you talk about that?
Sure. So we intentionally kept it as open as we could, in part because, well, we knew we could, and we knew that we did not have to respond to some longer history of the Biennial because There is no longer history, this is the first one. So, we could kind of do what we wanted and I think because of that, we decided that we wanted people to submit— what did we end up saying? It was 10 images or 15 images? Maybe 10. And that allowed us to like get a sense of the artist's production. And like Marina mentioned, There were definitely examples of where the work that was submitted wound up not being the work in the show.
Which is amazing. I'd like to know how that happened but—
Well, I mean, it was possible because we decided early on that we wanted to do as many studio visits as possible.
Okay. Yep.
Once we had a sense of that list of artists, artists, it became a, you know, let's get in the car, go and drive and see these people. If, you know, maybe they come here to show work. But it was important to me from the get-go to visit these studios and see the artists in the spaces where they're making work, see the work in the space where it's being made. You can learn all kinds of things about—
Yeah, absolutely.
Artists and their work. By seeing the space in which they make it.
Yeah. I mean, one thing you can see is, oh wait, you think this is your best work? How about that, you know, those images tucked away on the pinboard over there in the corner?
Yeah.
I have grown to really trust that kind of instinct. It can lead you to some really wonderful discoveries.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, that's some part of what's That's so great about the scale of what we're doing. So, I mean, we do many things, right? Like Adam said, superlative show that we try to do both, right? This sort of dedication and service to the community and regional artists, but then also bringing other things so that, you know, not everybody is going to New York City to see shows, right?
That's right.
So we bring things here that people maybe otherwise wouldn't have a chance to see, and certainly couldn't walk off the street in Kingston for free to come and see. So both of those things. But this, like, how, you know, for a very low budget, meaning our gas, we could get in the car and drive and see the artists and do all of these studio visits. Yeah. Incredible. Which is so fortunate. I mean, I think very special set of circumstances, I guess, surrounding how we work here in general, but this particular show.
And this region, Hudson Valley region, it has gone through waves of creative energy.
Oh my gosh.
And I think we are at the crest right now of another one of those waves.
Yeah.
So it felt like the right time to respond to all of the activity that's in this region right now. It seems to me like we're in a real high point.
I couldn't agree more. I mean, I feel as connected as someone who's in this industry, both as Sasha Wolfe Projects and as PhotoWork Foundation. Like, I feel as connected here as I do in New York City, if not more here, to be honest, because it's almost like there's not a million things between me and the colleagues here.
Mm-hmm.
It's just there's something that's just much more open, and it feels much easier to connect. So it's really incredible. And of course, you know, at the opening nights— and let me just say, and you guys can tell me whether this is something, because I don't know that people can get on the website or not, but you guys produced an amazing catalog for this show. It's really beautiful. I have it right next to me. And I really love it. I think you guys did such a beautiful job design-wise. And it feels like something— it just feels like a beautiful survey book, not like something you would look at just specific to this show, and then the show is over, I'm gonna put this on the shelf and forget about it. But it's a beautiful collection of artists. And—
I hope it is. Something that people return to.
Yeah, no, absolutely. But the opening, the book launch, the catalog launch, these, these evenings and afternoons have been packed here. I mean, that must be so gratifying. Hundreds and hundreds of people. So I think it sort of—
Feels good. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie.
No lying, no lying here on, on the podcast. So this is something you guys will return to every couple of years. And yeah, it's so exciting. And what else is coming up? Tell folks. And look, I've said this before on the podcast, but Kingston, New York is not hard to get to. Come visit.
True.
We're not talking about something that has a lot of barriers. This is a place that is phenomenally easy to get to. If you're in New York City, take the bus, Take the train and then a little bit of a car ride, but not much, about half an hour. And yeah, come up and see it all for yourself. It's no different than visiting Dia Beacon or—
Yeah, it's not difficult to find us.
No.
There's a lot to do in Kingston.
There's so much to do. But tell folks what's coming up and how are you guys Thinking about the curatorial vision for CPW, I mean, it's all so new and so young, and I know you're making adjustments sort of as we go along, as you sort of try and nail down how many shows a year, what type of shows.
Yeah, it often feels like a moving target because we know that over the next handful of years there will be more renovations happening in the building. building.
Mm-hmm.
And the galleries themselves might be changing. They might move to a different floor. And so there are just a lot of variables that we'll be contending with over the next couple of years. From my own side of things, this isn't necessarily exhibition related, though it kind of is. We're moving towards implementing a collection database, which I'm very excited about. It probably sounds very boring, but CPW, I discovered when I arrived here, has a permanent collection.
Right.
That has grown over the years. It was founded in 1977, and there is a body of thousands of photographs that have accumulated here. And we do not yet have a database to capture all of that data. And quite a bit of my professional training is working with collections of photography.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'm very excited that we're going to be getting TMS at CPW and we can start cataloging and, you know, moving the collection into the 21st century, which is going to be important because next year will be the 50th anniversary of the organization. And so we're thinking about what an exhibition drawn from this permanent collection could look like.
Oh, yeah. That's fantastic.
And so there's a lot of research and a lot of legwork to do between now and then.
Yeah, I'm sure you'll be doing a call for interns.
Oh, that won't surprise me at all. But yeah, that's having a place to start building out the history of the organization and recapturing all this information. And having a place to put it is, it's what sets us up to continue to expand our ambitions and do shows in the future. And it's, it's a real coup for us to be able to get this kind of software, which is the gold standard of museum database systems.
No, it's fantastic. And, um, how many shows are going to be?
Well, we're currently doing 9 shows a year.
Yeah, because we have 3 gallery spaces plus the community gallery, so 4 gallery spaces, but 3 of them change on the same cycle. So that's 3 times.
How does an artist who's, you know, listening to this and thinking, wow, how do I, how do I get shown at CPW? How do I, how do these decisions get made? I'm not talking about the Biennial, which is specifically devoted to upstate artists, but I'm talking about If you want to mention some of the shows that you've put together over the past couple of years, might give people an idea of some of the artists you've shown. Sure.
We started with Kathleen and Colleen Kenyon.
Yes. Yeah. Which was in itself another nod to the organization's history.
We have shown Raheem Fortune. We've shown the work of Keisha Scarville, Kehanah Ostrich. We did The Rose, sort of survey of feminist collage work across media, but from a photographic perspective.
We've shown more classical work like Larry Fink.
Ocean Vuong. It's been a great mix. I mean, the question is a big one. I was like, this is like, how do you program? I mean, it's the— It's the secret sauce, right?
Yeah.
There is a mix of all kinds of things. You need to be strategic. You need to be— we're nimble, small, and so we can be pretty responsive to colleagues' work that we admire, so we can share resources and bring shows from other places. We can tap guest curators. Nicole Fleetwood guest curated an exhibition. And then we have our own projects, and we try to mix And we try to then also make sure that we're paying attention to artists who are working here, not just in biennial season, you know? So there's just— yeah, there's a big mix, and it's always being refined.
Yeah. And I think for artists listening, there's unfortunately no sort of one answer. I know people would like there to be. I think, you know, there's no actual submission process.
There is one thing that we do every year, which is we have a summer portfolio Review, right, where the Portfolio Review winner does—
Yes, thank you for mentioning that.
Does get an exhibition in the community gallery. And so that is something that's, you know, you get your work seen by not just people on staff, but we invite, um, Sarah Danziger, who puts it together, invites professionals from the fields from lots of places. So it's a great opportunity to show your work, have conversations about your work, and potentially, if you are the the winning portfolio.
Yeah, no, thank you for, for mentioning that because that I think has been quite a lot of exposure for the— I think there have been 2, 2 women who—
Yeah, yeah, Maureen Beidler and Jiatong Lu was the most recent one. And both have gone on to continue to show their work. So yeah, of course.
And another thing I've noticed, and this isn't just applicable to CPW, I think it's just something I've noticed professionally is that if you're a photographer and you want to be shown, it helps a lot just to be around.
To just talk about that, please.
To just to make yourself a part of the community. And I've noticed that even with people that have eventually wound up on our staff, where they'll, they'll arrive You know, the stereotype is the transplant up from the city.
Mm-hmm.
And they're looking for opportunities or ways to get involved. And most of the time, it's not as simple as, we have an opening and you're perfect for it, see you next week. A lot of times it's like just being present and coming to the talks, coming to the openings, you know, participating in the workshops and the portfolio reviews. You know, if you make yourself a part of the community, when opportunities come along, we already know you.
Absolutely.
And in a way, that means everything.
Yeah.
Because we're very dedicated to building this community. And just personally, I draw a lot of inspiration from the community that I was a part of in San Francisco, the community of photographers and photography professors and curators and teachers in the Bay Area. I have such fond memories of all of those folks. And when I found my way to CPW, I found myself reflecting on that community quite a lot and hoping to bring some of that interconnectedness. And because that was a group of people that really took care of one another. And I had professors at school that were very adamant that photographers have to take care of one another.
Mm-hmm. I think that that's right. And I think this is one of those things that's hard to sort of draw a straight line. But what Adam is saying is, is so important, which is somehow— and this is why I always say to young artists, whatever, and talk about the long game and the community of it— this is where it gets tricky.
Yeah.
It's like, it's not about being an opportunist. It's about being genuinely involved.
Yeah.
And enjoying the company of the folks around you. And it's not about making yourself indispensable. It's about making yourself part of. And I can think of so many people who are teaching workshops here now who were those people who were just always around. And it doesn't take long here because, as you've heard, I think of CPW as sort of almost like you guys have a big board of directors, whatever, and yet somehow you manage to run with almost no bureaucracy, which is amazing. There aren't all these regulations in your way. You just sort of— Yeah. Meet people, feel what's missing, what, you know, a piece that needs to be put in place. You add it, you find the right person to teach it or coordinate it or whatever it is, and it's just sort of organically, holistically getting larger and larger and larger in this really wonderful way. And so Yeah, just being a part of is so powerful.
It's a two-way street. And it's not always like that, right? Especially at institutions, you just say it's not. It's like, it's the opposite, right? There's a door, there's a steel door, and they're not. So that's a really nice thing. I mean, as a fan and listener of the podcast, Sasha, I would say I would love to hear a conversation about— because we use this word a lot, community, right? in here, and I feel we're all very invested in it. But this sort of— I mean, maybe it's an evergreen topic, but this difference between regional institute, you know, sort of big institutions, regional institutions, community-based institutions, and then also sort of within that, the medium-specific institution, right? The kind— how it changes the way you function, who you're— what your mission is, but also who who your constituency— like, who are you serving? Who is it for?
Yeah.
Right. And I think that question is very different, even though we sometimes maybe gloss over that and say it's the same for, for every place that— that every not-for-profit that shows art. But that's not the case.
No.
So just to like dig in, right?
Yeah.
Those things.
Yeah.
Because I would say, like, I've been working maybe 20 years now. This is the first time I find myself in institution that I can say is a community or a center that is community-based in a very different way. Though day-to-day my job—
Could you talk about that a little bit?
So Adam worked at Carnegie. SFMOMA is, isn't kind of regional just because the Bay Area is such a—
It's kind of in a gray area.
Yeah, a land of its own in a way.
But lots of great, amazing Regional, large regional from Nelson-Atkins.
Yes.
So many amazing— I mean, Columbia. Yeah, yeah, amazing. There's so many great, great regional institutions. And then you might ask them—
Art Institute of Chicago.
What is there? You know, like, then they have a different, more zoomed in.
And then now we're here. The High Museum. Yeah, right, which does a Southern-focused photography show. every 2 years? Is it every— whatever it is. Sorry, Greg Harris. But shout out to Greg. But yes, so from MoMA all the way to—
To CPW, which— but then we're doing shows also, again, we're doing shows, you know, Amélie, Stephen Shore, Lyle Jean Harris, like, Kevin Williamson, who just grad— who is still in a graduate program, all those mixed together. So we can do both. You can show the ocean wall, you can do these things. But on the ground, it's so, it's so wildly different than anything I've experienced.
And you, you know, like, how important focus on community, on community and how people—
yeah, the door is like truly open, which is—
I want to say something everywhere because you can't do it, right? Not at all.
Here you can.
I think it's important just to give people a little bit more, fill in a little bit about Kingston. We are in an area that's changing but has been primarily very working class and very heavy immigrant area. Kingston itself has been for quite a while a pretty sort of blue-collar community. And again, like any place You know, there's things that are changing. And during the pandemic, a lot of different people moved up here and whatnot. There's more coffee shops.
Yeah.
It's more expensive coffee.
That's how you know.
That's how you know. But I think it's important. And I say that because it was very important when CPW moved from Woodstock to Kingston for you guys to do outreach to the immediate area to take the temperature of other local organizations that are working with the community in a lot of different ways to provide support, education, after-school programs, etc., to find out how do we fit in in a way that is— we are helping, we are welcome, and we are not We're not the expensive coffee shop. And so I think that a lot of what you two have talked about today, and Marina, what you were sort of just talking about, when we keep using— we've used the word community to talk about us and our photo friends and people like us who are sort of obsessed in this photo world, but also to talk about the community outside the doors of CPW. So How has that been? What is that process? I just want to address that because I think it's really important.
Well, it was important to us that we present ourselves as, as a place where if you're another nonprofit in this region and your mission has nothing to do with photography, but you find yourself doing something photo-related, be in touch with us. So one example of that was When the community gallery opened, one of the early shows we did was Ulster County has a garden club.
Mm-hmm.
And that garden club has a photography competition.
Mm-hmm.
And the club does not have a space to do their photography competition and exhibition. And so even though this garden club is not, you know, they're not an arts organization per se, But they're doing something photo-related, so we want them to look to us as a resource.
Mm-hmm.
So, I mean, that's one example, but we knew immediately that people recognize inauthenticity very quickly.
Mm-hmm.
And this is a region that, for better or worse, has had a lot of gentrification.
Mm-hmm.
And we don't want to be contributing to that in a way that it, that it depletes the region. We want, we want to enrich this area.
You guys did a program, uh, you had did something with Wendy Ewald. Can someone say anything about that? I don't really know the details.
Yeah, that's ongoing, a project called Sanctuary City where Wendy, as she does, goes into a specific community and helps them sort of use photography as a way of personal narrative storytelling. And so she is working with Kingston High School and English as a Second Language, English as a New Language students primarily, not maybe exclusively, exclusively, but that's the thrust of the project. And that will culminate in a public art display across Kingston.
Wow.
So that kind of thing, yes, definitely. And then we work with Place Corps a lot, which is a local, kind of a hyper-local—
Yeah, like a local version of AmeriCorps.
AmeriCorps. You know, students who graduate from high school but aren't going to college right away, take a gap year, or sort of non-traditional students that go into this program and they get instruction in all kinds of things from boat making to photography, right? to accounting and sort of a wonderful life skills program that we— and incredible work has come out of that too. Very impressed by the students.
Yeah.
What else? Although, this is another question, Sasha, which is so like— now we're really like into sort of these questions of like, what do we— what are we doing as an institution? Or what do arts organizations do and who are they serving and how do they get people? This is the question. If you could get people who aren't interested in art at all into your— into the— you know, this is like, this is the thing of the Museum of Ice Cream experiences and these kinds of Van Gogh extravaganza kind of things of trying to desperately reach people who maybe aren't predisposed to search you out, seek you out. That is a whole other— let's have a series. But, you know, these kinds of questions are really interesting. Like, how do you get—
Absolutely.
Because art doors are— oh, art truly open. And we can make it as, you know, we hope people come for— I feel like programming, you can also do it there where maybe people aren't specifically— I mean, photography already has that sort of outreach built in, potentially more than other kind of art forms. But we did a program with Jia Tong about Lyme because her project was about chronic Lyme disease. And that, I did think, brought in some people who Or not art people. Not art people.
Never would have.
But they saw the power in those photographs to tell a story that they, you know, maybe they're struggling with it. Yeah.
Yeah. It's an amazing project.
How do you express that? How do you express the kind of like suffering that you're going through when it's hidden and people automatically kind of approach you with a little, maybe a little bit less up here, but generally with some skepticism? So I think they saw the power of photography to do that. And even the people she photographs in that project sort of understood it.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
And that added to the kind of awareness, right, about the disease. So there's those ways. I mean, it's a slow and kind of like ebb-flow, hard-to-pin-down process, right?
Absolutely.
Some of it is bringing someone in who has appeal outside of the world too, and that can bring people in, you know? Um, so it's, you know, but it is hard. That's like a— that is the ever—
yeah, more feeling it out question.
Yeah, more and more difficult, right?
I think in both the ways we're talking about, like being, you know, really offering something to your local community, to your neighbors, it's also, by the way, a question that I talk to my colleagues and artists about all the time. How do you expand the audience for fine art photography? Because it's, it's actually not huge, you know, it's very nichey. You would think it— that wouldn't be the case because everyone is always taking pictures, but those two things, there's a big wall with everyone taking pictures on one side and people making Art photography and the language of that on the other. That's a different show, I think. But it is, it's complicated.
Yeah, it's like anything sort of niche, like you say, or expertise-based or very focused. It's not just an art museum problem or an arts institution, art center problem. It's every art form problem, right? Of how do you— everything that's, you know, sort of maybe not specifically practical But we, you know, don't have admission, which is very important. And so that's one barrier that we've just completely removed.
Yeah.
But we also need to, I think, as a community, as a professional community, sort of need to step back and also say, okay, well, what are our expectations of people, right? Like, do we— we have this thing to offer and we put from the artists up and across everybody who's involved in the organization, we have our intentions Our intentions are pure, you know, as much as, you know, as they can be. We think, we feel, and we put this out there, and we think it's important, obviously. So important to society as a whole, as sort of like adding wrinkles to the brain, changing people's worldview, expanding people's worldview. But is it necessarily— is it a more— what is the moral imperative to be a visitor of such a place?
Right? That's the question.
I think we just have to be aware. We just have to be, like, fully invested in it, but also aware that we can't really— like, that's an expectation that we— that's a value that we have.
Right.
Is it inherent human value? We think so.
It's not just a value. It's an interest. It's, uh—
Sure, you have to have time.
You know, I mean, when I've had this conversation with good friends who are in the business about how hard it is to— Bring new people in. And I always say, it's like, you know, I'm a big, a lifelong baseball fan. I watch a lot of baseball games, something I grew up on. And so I have real love of the game. But like, I don't expect anyone else to love the game. But do I want them to love the game? Is it important? Now, this is obviously very different because—
Right.
With art, we believe that there are important things that art is communicating, and so very different than baseball. But I use that just to say, it's hard when you really love something to, you know, figure out how much you should try and be dragging someone or bringing someone over to that thing. I know if I bring someone— I'm gonna keep going with this. If I bring someone to a baseball game, They're gonna have a blast at the stadium, right? The whole atmosphere, the whole— But does that make them a baseball fan? It's really difficult to— You know, sometimes I wonder, is it— It's like the nature-nurture thing. How much is inherently in someone to be predisposed to art versus how much can we sort of teach someone this? I mean, now I'm getting really macro.
Exactly. It's a big philosophical question, but— I will say that at least practically speaking, one barrier is the payment, but one barrier is also feeling like this place is for you, right? That it's not exclusive. And I feel like that's something that is fantastic about working at a place like CPW where they're really like, like you say, the sort of bureaucracy is not there, but also the hierarchy isn't there.
No, the hierarchy isn't there.
It's so comfortable. walk in, it doesn't look like, you know, it's not like you have to like tiptoe around and you're like, is this right?
We don't have a lot of people to tell us no.
No.
Yeah.
So it is inviting.
Yeah.
And it is free and it is hopefully interesting. And so that's what we can do, right? We, you know—
I think there are parallels.
We want everyone here.
In other fields like academia, you know, there are really large universities that draw people internationally. And then there are state schools and regional schools, and then there are community colleges.
Yeah.
And the vibe around here is very community college.
Yeah.
And I mean that in the best way.
In the best way. Yeah, 100%.
My, my best educational experiences were at a community college. And so that level of accessibility and that attention and that the way an institution on that scale can be a center of gravity for people.
Yeah.
Because the artists that I've met working in this field, the artists that have made the biggest impact on me, they all seem to be people that could make no other choice but to make work, where the cost of not making the work is higher than just being an artist and making the work. Like, this is what they are. They have to make artwork. And I want to be here for those people where it's, it's not a question of whether you're going to be this. It's, it's who you are. It's what you are. It's what you have to pursue. And if photography is the medium that you've chosen, I want this to be a place that you can go to deepen your understanding of it. Because a lot of the time, photographers already know what they need. They just need a place to go find it and do it.
Yeah.
So what can we do? We keep the doors open and keep banging the drum.
Yeah, I like it. Um, well, on that note, I like ending on an upbeat note. This has been a very upbeat talk though, so yeah, it's a happy morning. Thank you both so much.
Thanks, Sasha.
Thank you so much.
It's been a delight to get to know you across the hall as you've moved in as our first neighbor.
Yeah, I like it. And I always have the free coffee.
But, um, oh yeah, I'll take you up on a coffee.
Coffee machine going in my little library here. All right, guys. Well, I'll see you now. Thanks so much, Sasha.
Thanks for having us.
Bye.
Photowork with Sasha Wolfe is a production of the Photowork Foundation. Executive producer is Sasha Wolfe, and the associate producers are Taylor Sellsback and Noah Lin. The show is also produced and edited by me, Michael Chovendalt, and A Real Photo Show. Music is by J. Walter Hawkes. If you like the show and wish to find out more about the foundation, please visit photowork.foundation and be sure to subscribe and review With All the Stars on your listening platform.