For Behind the Lens 2021 we are revisiting work submitted to Behind the Lens Plus over the course of 2020, reimagining an online series for Women in a physical gallery.
Behind The Lens Plus: Expanded,
A Year Long presentation of Women Behind the Lens
Somehow March 2020 has become March 2021, a full year with COVID-19 has passed and Women’s History month has arrived again… after a year of living and working mostly remotely with the aid of the internet, we decided to bring our virtual exhibition series, Behind the Lens Plus into the gallery in an expanded form. Having only presented a small selection of the projects submitted we are taking this opportunity to revisit the project in the gallery, expanding on and giving physical form to this virtual exhibition series. As we prepare to return to life in person we are reimagining this online exhibition series as an in person experience.
Our Behind the Lens series of exhibitions started back in 2018 to explore photography from a women’s perspective and was mounted to celebrate Women’s History month. It proved to be one of the more popular exhibitions of the year and certainly the most talked about one. Every year since we have presented a new version of Behind the Lens: Women in Photography with the goal of presenting an ever widening look at Women photographers.
2020 was no exception, we started with a plan to look at mostly younger rising talents in Behind the Lens 2020: Women in Photography paired with Visual Conversations: a conversation without words a collaborative project from a group of women well into their second careers… the exhibitions were curated, hung and ready to open… but much to my disappointment COVID-19 had arrived and neither exhibition ever had an official public opening…
In response, as we waited to see what 2020 would become, we invited women around the world to send in their photographs and stories and launched Behind the Lens Plus, a free open call for an online exhibition series. My hope was to draw a new audience for our planned celebration of Women’s History Month by providing an opportunity for photographers everywhere to participate as normal gallery operations were curtailed.
Expanding the scope of the project provided the opportunity to present a wider array of perspectives than we had assembled in our gallery exhibitions. With the help of Grace Marie DeWitt, who curated the published collections, the project has been a bright spot in an otherwise dark year. Now, a full year later, we have decided to bring this virtual exhibition series, this online collection of work into the physical gallery as our 2021 look at women behind the lens… We have linked all the original collections below providing a home for the entire project, collecting all of Behind the Lens Plus into one central location.
I would like to thank everyone who participated in our extended Behind the Lens Plus online series and a very special thank you to Grace Marie DeWitt for her invaluable efforts curating, writing about and providing a modern context for the work collected here. We hope you have found your way through this year of living remotely and connecting virtually. As we look forward to living life in person once again, we hope that you will join us in this small but hopeful look at what we have gained––this gathering of photographs from virtual space, that now exists in a physical place.
David DeMelim
Managing Director
Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts
Behind the Lens Plus: Expanded
a virtual exhibition series in a physical space
Click the image to view the installation as a virtual 360 experience
For this gallery presentation of Behind the Lens Plus: Expanded we chose to imagine what a virtual exhibition would look like if given physical form. This exhibition brings together the work submitted over the course of 2020, revisiting the previously collected works and expanding on them with the inclusion of work not previously featured. In keeping with the original project’s goal of being inclusive, with no cost to the participants and with a nod to its original online format, we have installed the work submitted electronically in a hybrid gallery presentation. This mostly electronic presentation makes use of projections, iPads, QR codes (for contact free interaction) and a wall size simulated contact sheet of the work submitted to reimagine this online project in the gallery in celebration of Women’s History Month as we transition back to life in person….
Take a walk through the the exhibition…
From the Curator, Grace Marie DeWitt
Behind The Lens Plus: Expanded
The world has always questioned the presence of women: the mere existence of Women’s History Month and the 19th Amendment confirm this. In such a world, the act of photography by women is a necessary form of self-preservation, and an undeniable proclamation of witness.
Behind The Lens Plus features a collection of photographic work submitted by women around the world online through a free, open, and non-thematic call. Far from exhaustive or conclusive, the project strives to present just one collective of women who are building an archive for themselves, through the reclaiming act of visual documentation.
The original online component of this project featured a selection process and subsequent essays. This writing was a labor of love to celebrate strong work, but it was also the product of one individual’s visceral response.
Now, the in-gallery exhibition for Behind The Lens Plus is a due and deserved chance to honor every person who shared their world with this project. It materializes the paper and pixel trail of things that this group of women––from innumerable places, histories, and identities––have deemed worthy of immortalization. It commits to memory what was gathered in this project and held close in these photographs, during a period of time that repressed those exact acts.
Whether in-person or online, I hope you can connect or reflect with any number of works shown in this installation––and, I also hope a bit more bravely that Behind The Lens Plus can attest to the infinite volume of photographs by women which merit our close- and slow-looking.
Thank you.
Grace Marie DeWitt
About the Juror: Grace Marie DeWitt (she/her/hers) is one of the exhibiting artists in Behind The Lens 2020: Women in Photography, RICPA’s in-gallery companion exhibition to Behind The Lens Plus. DeWitt is a Maryland-based interdisciplinary artist, and works in national and international programs at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Behind the Lens Plus: Expanded Revisiting an Online Exhibition Series in the Gallery
Exhibition: Thursday, March 18th, thru Tuesday, April 13
Reception: March 25th, 2:00 – 8:00 p.m.
‘Behind The Lens Plus’ Collection 1:
Click the link above to read about work from…
THIS IS A GOOD KISSING SPOT by Frijke Coumans ––– a cold but sunny, and sterile yet sensual, snapshot of the photographer’s greatest muse: the twin manifestation of control and desire.
Amanda & Olivia by Xiomara España ––– a gossamer-fine gesture of social harmony, concluding a photo shoot of two young but well-overlapped lives.
Untitled by Jan Ekin, from the photographic book Abstracts ––– a macro landscape that the photographer captured through her visually segmented world, helping us believe that the parts are sometimes as important as the whole.
María by Claudia Ruiz Gustafson, from the series Historias fragmentadas ––– one moment in an exercise of longing and imagination, in which the photographer attempts to connect with the live-in maid from her childhood home whose current location and even last name remain unknown.
‘Behind The Lens Plus’ Collection 2:
Click the link above to read about work from…
at the lake by Catalina Aranguren ––– the photographic equivalent of a quilt: a collection of the patterns, movements, and textures that make up this single, multifaceted life.
Self-portrait with Me #2 by I-Lun Huang, from the series Self-portrait with Me ––– a character study of the dual human psyche: how we can (or cannot) document our impulsive Id with our methodical Ego.
Untitled by Shalini Ray ––– a healing exercise commemorating family history through portraiture, pieced together using inherited objects from the photographer’s late grandfather, outside the home he built.
Haidy by Laurène Southe ––– a grounding and empathetic vignette that models power, resolve, and moxie rather than accessory, fashion, or media.
‘Behind The Lens Plus’ Collection 3:
Click the link above to read about work from…
The Otros Espacios project by Angelina Ruiz –– An investigation of collective memory that uses found and taken portraits to navigate the connections yearned and even shared among those who have never met.
Postcard #2 from the series Nudes by Mayomi Basnayaka ––– Serving as both an act of opposition and an affirmation of beauty, these elegant details of Brown and Black women wearing “nude” garments help to expose the normalization of white bodies and champion the universal right to self-empowerment.
The Second Nature series by Işık Kaya ––– Like a mass-produced painting, or a GMO-drenched rosebush, Second Nature investigates the twisted tendency for humans to trade their imperfect reality in favor of a prettier, simpler, and emptier, world.
Community by BLACKKSWANN –– A record of peaceful protest against anti-Black police brutality in the U.S. which aims to humanize the protester community, fortify Black archives, and appendix the Westernized record of culture and art.
‘Behind The Lens Plus’ Collection 4:
The Fourth Collection was written off due to the unaccountable blocks of time that vanished in the course of 2020 and… we have sent out search parties and hope to have a status update in the near future. We are working on putting a special presentation together for release as time allows.
‘Behind The Lens Plus’ Collection 5:
Click the link above to read about work from…
The Only Known Home from The Stories I Have To Tell series, by Alexis Childress –– A visual testament to the trial of “belonging” within white-washed power structures.
Untitled by Kayla Guajardo — A form of visual memoir that helps us cherish quotidian complexities, and muse on things unplanned.
Shutters, from the Conversations with Myself series, by Jo Ann Chaus –– One arranged moment in which the photographer fully defers to the inevitable reel of life.
Untitled by Taylor Yingshi Wang –– An intuitive endeavor to contain a simple but rich experience, in a single, but still, dimension.
We’ll Ride Them Someday from The Laundry Series, by Gail Rousseau –– A serendipitous gift brought about from seeing, and believing in, the extraordinary moments tucked into ordinary life.
About the Juror: Grace Marie DeWitt (she/her/hers) is one of the exhibiting artists in Behind The Lens 2020: Women in Photography, RICPA’s in-gallery companion exhibition to Behind The Lens Plus. DeWitt is a Maryland-based interdisciplinary artist, and works in national and international programs at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Behind the Lens Plus: Expanded Revisiting an Online Exhibition Series in the Gallery
Exhibition: Thursday, March 18th, thru Friday, April 13
Reception: March 25h, 2:00 – 8:00 p.m.
The RI Center for Photographic Arts, RICPA 118 N. Main St. Providence, RI 02903
Located in the heart of Providence, RICPA was founded to inspire creative development and provide opportunities to engage with the community through exhibitions, education, publication, and mutual support.
RICPA exists to create a diverse and supportive community for individuals interested in learning or working in the Photographic Arts. We strive to provide an environment conducive to the free exchange of ideas in an open and cooperative space. Members should share a passion for creating, appreciating, or learning about all forms of photo-based media. We work to provide a platform for artistic expression, that fosters dialogue and drives innovation in the photographic arts.
The Gallery at the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts is a member of Gallery Night Providence https://www.gallerynight.org/
Questions: Contact gallery@riphotocenter.org To learn about other RICPA exhibits and programs, visit https://www.riphotocenter.org/.
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