Mary Beth Meehan
“I am a photographer and educator who tries to capture meaningful, in-depth portraits of my community.”
– Mary Beth Meehan
Mary Beth Meehan is a photographer whose work explores issues of culture, community, and visibility. She undertakes long-term, in-depth projects, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, RISCA, RICH, and others. “City of Champions,” her first public installation, in her hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts, was featured on the New York Times LENS blog, in 6Mois Magazine (France) and in publications in Great Britain and Japan. Her series Undocumented, investigating the lives of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., was published in Germany and China, and traveled the U.S. with the 2015 FENCE installation. Her portrait series, SeenUnseen, was installed in 2015 as large-scale banners in downtown Providence. A former staff photographer at The Providence Journal, Meehan was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She holds a degree in English from Amherst College and a Master of Arts in Photojournalism from the University of Missouri. She lives in Providence.
Her feature and video interview were published in the 2015-2016 issue of the Networks Project which featured twenty four Rhode Island based Artists across a broad spectrum of media and interests.
About the Artist: Mary Beth Meehan
Mary Beth is an independent photographer, writer, and educator, who has spent more than twenty years embedding herself in communities across the United States. Beginning in her native New England, and continuing in the Midwest, the American South and in Silicon Valley, her work, which combines image, text, and large-scale public installation, stems from her belief in a collaborative process that should function in and for the communities it reflects. Co-opting the scale of celebrity and advertising, Meehan’s portrait banners activate public spaces and spark conversations among and about the people who inhabit them.
With each project, formal and informal events are organized to engage communities in civic dialogue – about identity, access, visibility, inclusion, social equity, and other concerns. These events include walking tours, panel discussions, church and other community-group dialogues, and student-led interactions. Her most recent project, “Seeing Newnan,” was installed in that small Georgia town in April of 2019, and has already become a springboard for community-wide conversations and connections. That work will be in place until the Spring of 2020.
Mary Beth has held residencies at Stanford University, the University of Missouri School of Journalism and at the University of West Georgia. She has lectured and led workshops at the School of Visual Arts, New York, the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, in Boston, and the Missouri Photo Workshop. A native of Brockton, Massachusetts, Mary Beth received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature at Amherst College, and a Master of Arts degree in photojournalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She lives in Providence with her husband and two sons.
Mary Beth’s recently published book, “Seeing Silicon Valley” a collaboration with Silicon Valley culture expert Fred Turner presents a look into the everyday reality that is life in tech capital of the world. The book presents a series of environmental portraits of the homelife of the workers behind the startups and tech giants that dominate Silicon Valley. You can read more about the project on Lenscratch, courtesy of Aline Smithson. The book is available for purchase through the University of Chicago Press
SeenUnseen: Providence
In 2014, Meehan began an investigation of the practice of photographic portraiture with strangers. What followed was a deep engagement with Providence, Rhode Island, the community in which she lives. The project has grown into a collaboration with people as they shared their stories, a critical examination of the process of representing others, and a challenge to community members to travel outside their daily routes and meet their neighbors. With support from the City of Providence, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the portfolio has grown into a print exhibition, a blog, and a public installation that engages the whole community.
Click here or the image below to see the full collection of portraits
Wannton (from the series SeenUnseen), 2015
Photograph printed on weatherproof vinyl, 378 x 259 in.
Mary Beth’s portraits seek to illuminate the diversity and dignity of the human condition across a broad spectrum. Following “SeenUnseen”, Mary Beth was invited by the University of West Georgia to serve as Artist in Residence in Newnan. Mary Beth spent the next two years working to understand the town, its history, and its people, through a process of collaborative portraiture. The resulting project, “Seeing Newnan” is a city-wide exploration of community, identity, and culture based in Newnan, Georgia, and surrounding Coweta County. In Spring 2019, the resulting portraits were installed as large-scale banners in Newnan’s downtown.
Seeing Newnan:
A video Interview with NetWorks Photographer Mary Beth Meehan
Source: NetWorks 2015 – 2016 Catalogue
You can find more about Mary Beth on her website at www.marybethmeehan.com
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