Photography and Visual Stories: A Discussion with Astrid Reischwitz and Sarah Malakoff

Photography and Visual Stories: A Discussion with Astrid Reischwitz and Sarah Malakoff

Thursday, April 18 from 6:00-8:00pm in-person at CAA @ Canal

Free Admission (registration required)

Maximum number of attendees: 20

Are you a fine-art photographer? Do you have a passion for photography? Do you collect fine-art photographs? Or do you just love a good fine-art photo book?  If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, be sure to join fine-art photographers Astrid Reischwitz and Sarah Malakoff as they share their insights on creating and publishing a book of photographs.

This discussion, presented in conjunction with the Cambridge Art Association's "Storytime" photography exhibition, will offer a unique opportunity to explore what drives Astrid and Sarah to create compelling photographs—and to discover how they crafted a cohesive visual narrative from individual images.

Whether you're a photographer, an art enthusiast, or simply intrigued by the art of storytelling through visual imagery, you’ll find this conversation a rich and fascinating exploration of the process of publishing a fine-art book.

There will be time after the presentation for questions from the audience.

About Personal History | Sarah Malakoff’s long-term photographic projects explore private space as a realm where the things with which we surround ourselves, both consciously and unconsciously, express our identity, aspirations, desires, and fears.  In Personal History, she turns her attention to objects displayed within American homes that reference culture, history, and ideology.  Whether representations of historical figures, events, or monuments, the possessions point to a longing for connection to the past and an engagement with the world at large.  Often the collections of objects underscore the privilege and power implicit in the act of collecting.  These souvenirs resonate — sometimes humorously, sometimes disturbingly — with the other possessions and architecture that surround them, uneasily vacillating between heroism and kitsch, patriotism and colonialism.   

Sarah Malakoff | Sarah Malakoff ‘s large-scale color photographs are examinations of the home as both a refuge from and a re-creation of the outside world. She has had solo exhibitions at Howard Yezerski Gallery and The Garner Center for Photography, Boston, Massachusetts, Camerawork Gallery, Portland, Oregon, The Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, Vermont, the Sol Mednick Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts, and Plane Space, New York, NY and numerous group exhibitions internationally.  She received a 2001 and 2011 Artist’s Fellowship in Photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and a 2011 Traveling Fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  A monograph entitled Sarah Malakoff: Second Nature was published by Charta Art Books in 2013. She currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, is an Associate Professor at The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and is represented by Howard Yezerski Gallery. 

About | In Spin Club Stories, Astrid Reischwitz explores personal and cultural memory influenced by her upbringing in a small farming village in Northern Germany. She uses keepsakes from family life, old photographs, and embroidered fabric from the village to build a world of memory, identity, and home. The Boston-based artist takes cues from the old tradition of spin clubs in her village, where village women met to spin wool and create needlework—and share stories while they worked. She transforms this tradition of storytelling into a visual journey. Her own embroidered designs are partial representations of her ancestral linens, emphasizing the fragmentary nature of recollection. By following the stitches in these fabrics, she follows a path through the lives of her ancestors and converses with the past.

Astrid Reischwitz |  Astrid Reischwitz is a lens-based artist whose work explores storytelling from a personal perspective. Her projects include intimate views of private spaces, and reflections on her own history and values. Using keepsakes from family life, old photographs, and storytelling strategies, she builds a visual world of memory, identity, place, and home. Her current work incorporates embroidery and examines personal and collective memory influenced by her upbringing in Germany. Reischwitz has exhibited at national and international museums and galleries including the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Newport Art Museum, Griffin Museum of Photography, Danforth Art Museum, Photographic Resource Center, The Center for Fine Art Photography (CO), Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Center for Photographic Art (CA), FotoNostrum in Barcelona, Berlin Blue Art Gallery, Dina Mitrani Gallery and Gallery Kayafas. 

She has received multiple awards, including the 2020 Griffin Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Multimedia Award at the 2020 San Francisco Bay International Photo Awards. Her series “Spin Club Tapestry” was selected as a Juror’s Pick at the 2021 LensCulture Art Photography Awards and is the Series Winner at the 2021 Siena International Photo Awards. She is a four-time Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photographer and is a Mass Cultural Council 2021 Artist Fellowship Finalist in Photography. Her first monograph, “Spin Club Stories”, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2022. It was shortlisted for the 2022 Lucie Photo Book Prize and received “Silver” at the 2022 Budapest International Foto Awards and at PX3 2023. In 2022, the European TV channel ARTE showcased her work for “Spin Club Stories” in a segment of their television show TWIST. Reischwitz is a graduate of the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, with a PhD in Chemistry. After moving to the US, she fell in love with photography and began her journey to explore life through the creation of art. She is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston, Massachusetts.