Double Life: A Panel Discussion with Artist Kelli Connell

The Alice Austen House presents Double Life: a panel discussion with artist Kelli Connell and model Kiba Jacobson.

Connell and Jacobson will discuss their process and the recent images created on site at the Alice Austen House.

They will be joined by curators Victoria Munro as moderator and Hannah Frieser representing the Center for Photography at Woodstock where the exhibition Double Life: 20 Years is now on view post the inaugural 2021 exhibition at the Alice Austen House.

Kelli Connell’s twenty-year project with one model represents an autobiographical questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships. The project explores polarities of identity such as the masculine and feminine psyche, the irrational and rational self, the exterior and interior self, and the motivated and resigned.

By combining multiple photographic negatives of the same model in each image, the dualities of the self are defined by body language and clothing. The importance of these images lies in the representation of interior dilemmas portrayed as an external object: a photograph. Through these images, the audience is presented with “constructed realities”. This 20-year survey was presented at the Alice Austen House from June 01- August 31 2021. It is currently on view at the Center for Photography at Woodstock.

KELLI CONNELL

Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer / sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J Paul Getty Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications of her work include PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice (Aperture), Photo Art: The New World of Photography (Aperture), and the monograph Kelli Connell: Double Life (DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. Connell is an editor at SKYLARK Editions and also teaches at Columbia College Chicago.

KIBA JACOBSON

Kiba Jacobson was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1973. She attended the University of North Texas where she received her B.F.A in Photography and then later also attained her M.A. in Art Education. While in college she studied photography and fell in love with its potential to fabricate realities.  She would often use herself in her work to convey a range of themes, some autobiographical and others more fictionalized tableaus. After receiving her M.A., she decided to pursue a career in Art Education. She has taught at the secondary level for 15 years. She currently resides in Denton Texas where she continues to work as a High School Art Teacher. 

VICTORIA MUNRO

Victoria Munro is the Executive Director of the Alice Austen House, a nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history and the only museum in America to represent the work of one women photographer, Alice Austen. Victoria is an Art and Art History Educator, Maker and Photographic Curator. Victoria consults and speaks on LGBTQ+ curriculum development, historical and current LGBTQ+ interpretations in public and private institutions.

HANNAH FRIESER

Hannah Frieser is the executive director for the Center for Photography at Woodstock, an arts organization that features exhibitions, residencies and other artist-oriented programming. With over twenty years of leadership experience in the visual arts, she has curated numerous exhibitions with contemporary photographers, including Suzanne Opton, Adam Magyar and Barry Anderson. Her essays have been featured in monographs and publications, such as Contact Sheet, Exposure, and Nueva Luz. Prior to joining CPW, she was director of Light Work in Syracuse, NY.

Registration required.