If I Had a Hammer

FotoFest announces participating artists of the upcoming FotoFest Biennial 2022 central exhibitions If I Had a Hammer, African Cosmologies: Redux, and Ten by Ten, on view between September 24 and November 6, 2022 in Houston at Sawyer Yards in Arts District Houston. 

The FotoFest Biennial 2022 central exhibition, If I Had a Hammer, considers the ways artists utilize images to explore the formation of historical narratives, political ideology, and agency. The artists featured in If I Had a Hammer question the role of images in the construction, depiction, reception, and repression of global social movements and political ideologies, and represent a diverse range of image-makers, including photo-documentarians, activists, research-based artists and collectives, filmmakers, performance artists, and artists working in social practice.

The exhibition and its related public programs are co-curated and organized by Steven Evans, Max Fields, and Amy Sadao with curatorial advisory support from Julie Ault, Nora N. Khan, and Jeanne Vaccaro.

The artists and collectives featured in the FotoFest Biennial 2022 central exhibition If I Had a Hammer include
Laura Aguilar, Mónica Alcázar-Duarte, Chow and Lin, Forensic Architecture, Elaine W. Ho, Ho Rui An, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, David Kelley, Yazan Khalili, Ryan Patrick Krueger, Dorothea Lange, Dionne Lee, Toyo Miyatake, Delilah Montoya, Reynier Leyva Novo, Lorraine O’Grady, Mike Osborne, Liz Rodda, Keisha Scarville, Ines Schaber, Fred Schmidt-Arenales (in collaboration with David Ramírez Cotón, Daniel Hernández-Salazar, Camilla Juárez, and Jorge de León), Jonathan David Smyth, and Bruce Yonemoto.

FotoFest also announces the artists featured in the exhibitions African Cosmologies: Redux and Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2020–21.

Curated by Mark Sealy, Director of the renowned London-based photographic art institution Autograph ABP, African Cosmologies: Redux is a large-scale group exhibition that examines the complex relationships between contemporary life in Africa, the African diaspora, and global histories of colonialism, photography, and rights and representation. The exhibition considers the history of photography as one closely tied to a colonial project and Western image production, highlighting artists who confront and challenge this canonized lineage.

The artists featured in the exhibition African Cosmologies: Redux include
Faisal Abdu’Allah, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Hélène A. Amouzou, Sammy Baloji, James Barnor, Bruno Boudjelal, Edson Chagas, Ernest Cole, Jamal Cyrus, Jean Depara, Laura El-Tantawy, Samuel Fosso, Rahima Gambo, Eric Gyamfi, Lyle Ashton Harris, Samson Kambalu, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, leo with Shobun Baile, Mónica de Miranda, Santu Mofokeng, Sethembile Msezane, Zanele Muholi, Eustáquio Neves, Nyaba L. Ouedraogo, Rosana Paulino, Dawit L. Petros, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Aida Silvestri, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, and Wilfred Ukpong. 

Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2020–21 feature artists whose works are selected by a series of invited nominators as exceptional image-based portfolios presented during the 2020–21 FotoFest International Meeting Place Portfolio Review programs. The 2022 Ten by Ten exhibition is a celebration of FotoFest’s Meeting Place Portfolio Review as an important site of discourse and display, highlighting the works of ten artists, nominated by ten guest reviewers, whose works exemplify the broad range of contemporary photographic practice. Nominators include Nela Eggenberger, Teona Gogichaishvili, Mary Heathcott and Jacqueline McGilvray, Sam Mercer, Joaquim Paiva, Sinara Sandri, Serubiri Moses, Johan Sjöström, Paula Tognarelli, and Wendy Watriss.

The artists featured in the 2022 Ten by Ten exhibition include
Nick Block, Zana Briski, Alejandro González, Will Harris, Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Gregory Eddi Jones, Irolan Maroselli, Theresa Newsome, C. Rose Smith, and Larry Smukler.

The Biennial 2022 exhibitions If I Had a Hammer, African Cosmologies: Redux, and Ten by Ten are accompanied by six weeks of free public programming including a two-day symposium, artist performances, film programs, musical performances, artist talks and tours, and a school curriculum for students developed in response to the Biennial theme. The Biennial debuts with a grand opening celebration of the central exhibition, If I Had a Hammer, on September 24 from 8–11PM at Silver Street Studios and Winter Street Studios.

Additionally, FotoFest is partnering with numerous arts and cultural organizations to present programs throughout the city including The Alta Arts, Aurora Picture Show, Houston Cinema Arts Society, Houston Museum of African American Culture, The Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Musiqa among others. 

For detailed information about all FotoFest Biennial 2022 exhibitions, programs, and events, visit fotofest.org.