Please join ASMP-MSP for an evening with three visual professionals in our community who are using their platforms to advocate, and contribute positively to our collective communities through photography and other channels. This will be a special creative event, a cultural exchange of ideas and vision, please bring your questions and your friends. The conversation was hosted by Mary Archambault. Mary is a photo assistant and photographer based in Minneapolis. She is co-chair for social media on the ASMP-MSP board.
Featured Photographers:
Jovan C. Speller
jovanspeller.com
Jovan C. Speller is a Minnesota based artist, curator and arts administrator with over 15 years of experience. Her work – visual, textual and performative – interprets historic narratives through contemporary discourse. My research based practice is centered around elevating, complicating and inventing stories that explore ancestry, identity, and spatial memory – making the intangible tangible and the invisible visible. She is a recipient of a 2018 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, a 2018 Next Step Fund Grant, and a 2016 Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship. She recently completed an artist residency at Second Shift Studio Space in St. Paul. Her photographic works have been published and exhibited in various exhibitions and presentations across the nation. Her work has been collected in various private collections, and at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Jovan holds a BFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago, and studied art at Maryland Institute College of Art.
Richard Tsong-Taatarii
apicturepoet.com
Through his documentary photography work, Richard Tsong-Taatarii brings attention to the joys and tribulations of Minnesotans as a staff photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He also enjoys covering communities within our larger society that escape the attention of the mainstream media. His traveling monograph “Lakota Resistance: The Bison, Horse, and the River” is a five-year documentary on the legacy of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation and his extensive coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests on the Standing Rock Reservation. In 2018, he was named NPPA Best of Photojournalism large market photographer of the year for his coverage of the Rohingya exodus, end of the Standing Rock protests, and Black Lives Movement. He was also awarded a World Press Photo award in general news for his picture of Philando Castile’s best friend, John Thompson; and highlighting the long-term impact of the Black Lives movement.
Martine Séverin
martineseverin.com
Martine Séverin is a Chicago + LA based lifestyle, advertising and editorial photographer whose vibrant work aims to push boundaries and celebrate inclusivity.
She’s lived all over the world including France, Belgium, England and Boston, but her roots are tied to her home country of Haiti. Interested in creating fashion narratives that reference non-western norms, she strives to collaborate with brands who speak to a diverse audience.
Martine is also the host of the podcast, This is How We Create, a show that digs deeper into the creative life of contemporary artists of color.