Create cyanotypes on fabric and paper to capture the souls of medicinal herbs.
Presenters: Cinthya Santos Briones
Location: Family Activity Tent
Presented by:
In the workshop we will learn to take photographs with sunlight using an ancient cameraless photography procedure—which uses a mixture of photosensitive chemical compounds—to create images called cyanotypes.
We will use medicinal herbs, such as lavender, sage or rosemary, to make images on cotton fabric and paper.
We will learn about the history of this photography process created in 1842 while talking about the traditional herbalism we use to heal physically and spiritually. Among the smell of herbs we will create images, art and memory.
Cinthya Santos Briones is a visual artist, educator, and cultural organizer with indigenous Nahua roots based in New York. She studied Ethnohistory and Anthropology and for ten years Cinthya worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in México focused on issues on indigenous migration, codex, textiles and traditional medicine.
As an artist, her work focuses on a multidisciplinary social practice that combines participatory art and the construction of collective narratives. Through a variety of non-linear storytelling mediums she juxtaposed photography, historical archives, writing, ethnography, drawings, collage, embroidery, and popular education. Cinthya holds an MFA in creative writing and photography from Ithaca-Cornell and a certificate in Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism from the International Center of Photography (ICP). Currently she is an Adjunct Faculty at the Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Since 2022 she is part of Columbia University Visiting Critic artist.
She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Magnum Foundation (2016/2018/2020), En Foco (2017/2022), National Geographic Research and Exploration (2018), We Woman (2019), City Artist Corps (2020), National Fund for Culture and the Arts of México (2009/2011), Wave Hill House Winter Residency (2023), Mellon Artist Fellow at Hemispheric Institute in NYU University (2023-24), BricLab Contemporary Art (2023), etc. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Pdn, California Sunday Magazine, Vogue, Open Society Foundations, Buzzfeed, The Intercept, New Yorker, The Nation Magazine, among others. As a writer, her texts have been published in academic and journalistic magazines such as NACLA and The Nation and newspapers such as La Jornada.
Cinthya has exhibited her work individually and collectively in galleries and museums such as Sky Blue Gallery in Portland Oregon, Latinx Project, NYU, International Center Of Photography, Museo del Barrio, Museum of the City of New York, Trout Museum in Wisconsin, Paul W. Zuccaire gallery, Stony Brook, among others. She has given Artists Lectures at universities like Boston College, CUNY, Stony Brook, NYU, SUNY New Paltz, Dutchess Community College, Columbia, to name a few.
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race.
In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions.
By activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments, we join the cause of nurturing a new lens of representation.
Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com
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