The Griffin Museum is honored to have artist Benjamin Dimmitt and four of his contributors for a virtual panel discussion focused on the artist's new book An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands.
Photographer Benjamin Dimmitt grew up in West Central Florida, and loved experiencing the nature and wildlife indigenous to his home. In 1977, he drove to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge with his camera, and that trip was the start of a project that would span decades of making black-and-white photographs of a natural treasure that, as years passed, continued to change, and not for the better. The once flowing crystal clear river is now unnaturally slow and murky. The hardwood forests, brackish swamps and bays, are barely recognizable. Through this long-term project, An Unflinching Look, the artist documents the damage wrought by a compromised aquifer, chemical pollution and saltwater intrusion made worse by rising seas. The work is both haunting and beautiful.
For this panel discussion, Benjamin will be joined by four of his collaborators for the book, writer and editor, Alexa Dillworth, Research Associate Scientist, Dr. Matt McCarthy, writer, naturalist and advocate Susan Cerulean, and independent scholar, writer and curator specializing in photographs, Alison Nordström, PhD.
About the Artist and Panel:
Benjamin is the son of a native Floridian and an artist from New York. He was born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. When he was given a camera as a boy, the wetlands and woods near his home were his first subjects.
He studied photography at Eckerd College, Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and the International Center of Photography. Additionally, he studied printmaking at Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Centre in Florence, Italy and City & Guild Arts School in London, England.
Benjamin held an adjunct professor position at International Center of Photography from 2001-2013. He taught at Southeast Museum of Photography in 2018 and at Penland School of Craft in 2022.
He was a finalist in Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 200 in 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2019 and in New Orleans Photo Alliance's Clarence John Laughlin Award in 2014 and 2015.
His photographs have been exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals internationally and are held in multiple major museums and private collections. Benjamin Dimmitt
Alexa Dilworth, a writer and editor and a native Floridian, was the publishing and awards director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for more than twenty years. She has a B.A. and an M.A. in English from the University of Florida and an M.F.A. in creative writing (poetry) from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. Her writing has appeared in Lenscratch, Aperture's Photobook Review, the Oxford American, Wag's Revue, exhibition catalogs, and photography monographs.
Dilworth has edited the text and/or photos for over seventy books, most recentlyPictures for Charisby Kelli Connell (Aperture, 2024),Graciela Iturbide on Dreams, Symbols, and Imagination(Aperture, 2022),The Colors We Shareby Angélica Dass (Aperture, 2021), andRoad Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorialby Jessica Ingram (CDS/UNC Press, aNew York TimesBest Art Book of 2020). Dilworth has been Curator in Residence (2020) and Publisher in Residence (2023) at the Griffin Museum of Photography and curated the museum's 26th Juried Exhibition. She has co-curated three Slow Exposures' exhibitions with Aline Smithson (2014, 2018, 2023),Forgottenat the Southeast Center for Photography (2022),Currentsat the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (2015), and as a guest for the Eyes on the South column in theOxford American. Dilworth has participated as a nominator, juror, and portfolio reviewer for such organizations and festivals as the Aaron Siskind Foundation, Filter Photo, Hundred Heroines,Lenscratch, Los Angeles Center of Photography Reviews, Magnum Foundation, New England Portfolio Reviews, New York Portfolio Review, PhotoNOLA, PhotoPhilanthropy, Photoville/Fence, Photolucida/Critical Mass, Review Santa Fe, and The 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch.
Dr. Matt McCarthy is a Research Associate Scientist in the Remote Sensing Group of the Geospatial Science and Human Security Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He earned his master's and PhD in oceanography, and now uses satellite imagery to conduct large-scale, high-resolution studies of coastal regions to better understand how human activity and a changing climate are affecting coastal habitats, coastal populations, and national security.
Dr. Alison Nordström is an independent scholar, writer and curatorspecializing in photography. Her long career in the field includes positions as Founding Director and Senior Curator of the Southeast Museum of Photography (FL), and Senior Curator of Photographs/Director of Exhibitions at George Eastman House (NY). She is an articulate and experienced portfolio reviewer who is known for her insightful and helpful reviews. She has worked extensively with photographers and photographic institutions in Europe, Asia and the Americas, and is widely published on photographic topics. She hascurated over 100 photographic exhibitions in nine countries, includingLewis Hine,Truth/Beauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945, andIdeas in Things: Photography and Materiality. In 2015and 2016she was artistic Director of Fotofestiwal Lodz, in Poland. She was the curator of Joan Fontcuberta: Crisis of History for the Hamburg (Germany) Photographic Triennial in 2018, and of Findings: Photographs by Torben Eskerod at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt. She holds the PhD in Cultural and Visual Studies and is currently a Research Associate in Photography at Harvard University.
Writer, naturalist and advocate Susan Cerulean has lived on and listened to the northern Gulf of Mexico and its wild birds and islands since 1981. She has published three award-winning works of nonfiction with the University Press of Georgia: I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter's Memoir (2019); Coming to Pass: Florida's Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change (2015), and Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites.