FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Paula Tognarelli

Executive Director

Griffin Museum of Photography

781-729-1158

1 March, 2021 © Jerry Takigawa,

Balancing Cultures, EO 9066, 206

Griffin Museum of Photography

1 April – 23 May, 2021

The Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition schedule, opening April 1st with three new shows on the walls through 23 May, 2021.

Jerry Takigawa – Balancing Cultures | Artist Talk April 1st, 7pm EST

Claudia Ruiz Gustafson – Historias fragmentadas | Artist Talk April 8th, 7pm EST

Edie Bresler – Anonymous | Artist Talk April 11th, 7pm EST

Here is a more in depth look at the exhibitions.

Jerry Takigawa – Balancing Cultures Artist Talk Thursday April 1st 7pm EST

Initially an identity project, Balancing Cultures gives voice to a story suffered in silence by my immigrant grandparents and American-born parents. My mother’s passing left my brother and me with boxes of photographs. Among them were photos of family members taken in camp that we had never seen. In my family, when anyone spoke of camp, they weren’t referring to a pine- scented summer retreat—they were referring to the WWII American concentration camps sanctioned in 1942 by President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066.

Piecing together a historical puzzle of photographs, memories, and artifacts, I began an exploration into my family’s undisclosed past. For the first time, the hardships my family endured in the camps were illuminated to me. EO 9066 caused 110,000 Japanese Americans economic loss, the pain of prejudice and imprisonment, and the repercussions of re- integration into post-war America.

Although racism is deeply woven into our institutional and social fabric, there is no scientific basis for race. Race and racism are social constructs. This project is a testimony to the shame Griffin Museum of Photography griffinmuseum.org 781.729.1158 and indignation my family kept hidden due to their cultural stoicism and fear of retribution. Left untold, their experience would remain buried, a casualty of the country they loved and fought for. Balancing Cultures is especially relevant as long as America continues to incarcerate people—not for crimes they’ve committed, but simply because of whom they are.

About Jerry Takigawa - Jerry Takigawa is an independent photographer, designer, and writer. He studied photography with Don Worth and is the recipient of many honors and awards including: the Award (1982), the Clarence J. Laughlin Award, , LA (2017), Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 (2017, 2020), CENTER Awards, Curator’s Choice First Place, Santa Fe, NM (2018), and the Rhonda Wilson Award, Brooklyn, NY (2020). His work is in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Monterey Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress. Takigawa lives and works in Carmel Valley, California.

Claudia Ruiz Gustafson – Historias Fragmentadas Artist Talk – Thursday April 8th, 7pm EST (Online)

For those without roots in a place, memory is essential to maintain a sense of continuity in life. Isabel Allende

Historias fragmentadas is a visual journal that I created over the course of five years. It was fueled by a sentiment of longing and nostalgia after the death of my grandmother, the family story keeper in 2015. This event brought me to look deeper into my past; to explore the paradox of memory and the emotion of loss as a way to reconnect with my Peruvian roots and honor those who came before me.

In this series, I create digital photo collages that unsettle the images of the past in a way that allows me to look through the cracks. By tearing, juxtaposing and layering archival family photographs, fragments from my journals, and objects from my childhood, I have shed light on a personal story within an ancestral story that spans generations. I also use staged imagery, mostly self-portraits, to explore moments in my life where I have inhabited liminal spaces, moments of transition and experiences of displacement, both physical and psychological.

This work tells the story of a particular middle-class Peruvian family through my own lens. I have chosen, with these images and writings, to release the voices and the haunting self- discovery that happened when I explored the stories behind iconic family photographs and their legends through my own personal mythology. – CRG

About Claudia Ruiz Gustafson - Claudia Ruiz Gustafson (b. 1973) is a Peruvian visual artist and curator whose practice engages photography, assemblage, poetry and artist book making. Her work is mainly autobiographical and self-reflective; her cross-cultural experience and Peruvian heritage deeply inform her art making. Claudia’s latest projects explore the stories of her Peruvian ancestors and aspects of her immigrant and liminal experiences. Her latest ongoing body of

Griffin Museum of Photography griffinmuseum.org 781.729.1158 work Todas las Sangres aims to revisit her own history within the framework of the Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru in which she is in symbolic dialogue with historical characters to correct narratives within the imperialist gaze while attempting to decolonize the narratives from past and present.

Claudia has exhibited in museums and galleries across the US and abroad at venues including Danforth Art Museum, Griffin Museum of Photography, Newport Art Museum, Photographic Resource Center, Agora Gallery, Millepiani Gallery and Galleria Valid Foto. She is a 2020 Critical Mass 200 Finalist and 2020 Photo LA Top 20 Finalist.

Claudia has received grants and awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cambridge Art Association, L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards, PX3 de la Photographie Paris, The Gala Awards, among others and her work has been published in Fraction Media, Black & White Magazine, F-Stop Magazine, Float Photo Magazine, Aspect Initiative and Lenscratch.

Currently she is curator and participating artist of the traveling exhibition Crossing Cultures: Family, Memory and Displacement, a multi-media project made up of artwork created by multi-cultural artists reflecting on identity and diaspora.

She holds a BA in Communications (Comunicación para el Desarrollo) from Universidad de Lima, and a Professional Photography Certificate from Kodak Interamericana de Perú.

Edie Breseler – Anonymous Artist Talk Sunday April 11th, 4pm

During a year-long illness, I spent more time looking at photographs in books than making them. A series of anonymous nudes from various sources, all made between 1843-1910 entered my consciousness and kept me restless. It was not just the finality of the title, “anonymous”, but wonder about the relationship between photographer and subject. I found myself dreamily inventing backstories and imagining what they might have been like outside the photographers studio. To satisfy my curiosity, I scanned the original reproduction to digitally remove them from the studio. Then I began creating an alternate place and time. I embroider, and sew clothing as a gesture of renewal and second chances. Each sewn photograph is a unique echo of the original, akin to a distant, imagined descendent. I gratefully acknowledge the collectors and institutions who collected and preserved the original moments. – EB

About Edie Bresler –

Edie Bresler is a longtime artist who investigates chance and randomness with photography. Her multi-faceted projects embracing a gamut of processes and possibilities is a rarity in this era of branded creativity.

Bresler is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship in photography, several Visual Artist Fellowships from the Somerville Arts Council, a Berkshire Taconic Artist Resource Grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant.

Griffin Museum of Photography griffinmuseum.org 781.729.1158 Her projects have been featured on Good Morning America and PBS Greater Boston as well as in Photograph Magazine, Lenscratch, Slate, Photo District News, Business Insider, Esquire Russia and many other publications. She is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston and her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Danforth Museum of Art and Polaroid Corporation.

Bresler lives in Somerville, MA and is director of the photography program at Simmons University.

For more information about any of the artists included in these exhibitions or the Griffin Museum please contact us at 781.729.1158 or online at griffinmuseum.org

Visit the Griffin

The Griffin Museum of Photography is open Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday. Due to current restrictions by the Governor of Massachusetts, appointments are required for admittance. All visitors must have an individual appointment. We can only accommodate visitors with advanced appointments. All appointments and payments are scheduled in advance through our online system. Masks are required for entry. Prepayment is necessary as we cannot accept cash.

General admission is $9 for adults; $5 for seniors. Members and children under 12 are admitted free. Admission is free to all every Thursday, 2 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 781.729.1158, or visit www.griffinmuseum.org.

About the Griffin Museum

The Griffin Museum of Photography was founded in 1992 to provide a forum for the exhibition of both historic and contemporary photography. The Museum houses three galleries dedicated solely to the exploration of photographic arts: The Main Gallery, which features rotating exhibits from some of the world’s leading photographers, the Atelier Gallery and Griffin Gallery dedicated to showcasing the works of prominent, up-and-coming artists. The Griffin is also home to the extensive archives of museum founder and world-renowned photojournalist Arthur Griffin. The Griffin Museum of Photography also maintains 2 additional satellite galleries: Lafayette City Center Passageway in Boston Downtown Crossing, in Winchester @WinCam at Winchester Community Access and Media. For more on the Griffin Museum of Photography, visit www.griffinmuseum.org.

Photographs available upon request

Griffin Museum of Photography griffinmuseum.org 781.729.1158