Photography

July 25, 2024

Q & A with Artist Giselle Beiguelman

Sarah Groustra

JWA talks to Brazilian artist Giselle Beiguelman about her "Botannica Tirannica" exhibition, which explores how common botanical names both mirror and perpetuate societal prejudices.

Topics: Photography, Feminism, LGBTQIA Rights, Antisemitism, Natural Science

June 18, 2024

7 Questions For Photographer Dena Eber

Sarah Groustra

JWA talks to Dena Eber about her passion for photography and her new book You Refuse to Believe That You Ever Liked Pink.

Topics: Photography, LGBTQIA Rights, Motherhood, Children, Ritual

Collage of pro-choice poster on green background

January 8, 2024

Diana Mara Henry's Photography and Progressive Activism

Sasha Kranson-Forrest

Through the pictures I took of the protest, I used photography as a way to exhibit women’s rights issues, just like Diana Mara Henry and many other activists did.

Topics: Photography, Women's Rights

Collage of "Identical Twins" and clip art of a camera on black and white patterned background

December 29, 2023

Diane Arbus and Art as a Means of Processing, Coping, and Acting

Julia Brode Kroopkin

Arbus’s career sets a beautiful example of how to create space for purely expressive art. Art as a means of activism and coping is nothing new—yet it often feels inaccessible. I'm inspired by the risk she took to step away from commercial work.

Topics: Photography, Activism

Installation of crocheted white bra and underwear with a prayer book, on a dark background

August 31, 2023

7 Questions For Artist Gavi Weitzman

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA talks to Gavi Weitzman, a multimedia artist based in Philadelphia whose work explores Judaism, the body, and identity.

Topics: Painting, Photography, Feminism, Ritual

April 18, 2023

Q & A with Susan Chevlowe, curator of "Missing Generations: Photographs by Jill Freedman"

Jen Richler

JWA talks to Susan Chevlowe, curator of a new exhibition of photographs by Jill Freedman that documents the destruction and resurgence of Jewish life after the Holocaust.

Topics: Holocaust, Photography

February 16, 2023

From the Archive: Rebecca Lepkoff, "Midtown Manhattan" (1947)

Deborah Dash Moore and

Mimi Jessica Brown Wooten

The Posen Library shares Rebecca Lepkoff's photograph of a mid-century urban space in motion.

Topics: Photography

Rachel Finkelstein's The Herstory shows images of the artist, her daughter, her grandmother, and her great grandmother superimposed onto an identification card.

November 17, 2022

Rachel Finkelstein's Queer Feminist Holocaust Art

Emily-Rose Baker

Through its exploration of gender, sexuality, nationality, and intergenerational trauma, the work of artist Rachel Finkelstein is a reminder of the power that art holds as a form of activism.

Topics: Photography, Holocaust, LGBTQIA Rights, Palestine

November 2, 2022

Happy Mizrahi Heritage Month!

Jen Richler

Celebrate Mizrahi Heritage Month by checking out some of our favorite JWA content by and about Mizrahi women.

Topics: Photography, Fiction, Feminism

Joshua Mann Pailet

Project

Katrina's Jewish Voices

Rosalind Hinton interviewed Joshua Pailet on August 2, 2007, in New Orleans, as part of the Katrina's Jewish Voices Oral History Project. Pailet reflects on his childhood, artistic journey, the atmosphere of New Orleans, his firsthand experience of Hurricane Katrina, participation in the "Torah rescue," the rebuilding process, the importance of grassroots efforts, and his strengthened Jewish identity

A group of people in three rows in front of a bookstore.

September 8, 2022

Interview with Stella Levy, The Only Woman at City Lights Bookstore

Emma Breitman

JWA talks with Stella Levy about her appearance in an iconic photo from the 1960s, and how things have changed for women in the literary world since then.

Topics: Poetry, Feminism, Photography

Surrealist Photographer Claude Cahun is Born

October 25, 1894

On October 25, 1894, queer Jewish Surrealist photographer and writer Lucy Schwob, who later adopted the name Claude Cahun, was born in Nantes, France. Cahun would later participate in Paris’ Surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s, creating photographs and written work that challenged binary ideas of gender, sexuality, and the self.

Episode 66: Eye to Eye with Joan Biren (Transcript)

Photograph of Joan Biren kissing her lover, Sharon.

Episode 66: Eye to Eye with Joan Biren

Listen Now

In 1971, photographer Joan Biren, also known as JEB, started doing something revolutionary: documenting the everyday lives of lesbians. This was an era when you could lose everything—your job, your apartment, even your kids— if people knew you were gay. Joan published her first book Eye To Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, in 1979, and the book was reissued this year. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Judith Rosenbaum talks with Joan about her photography, and the way her Jewish, lesbian, and feminist identities have intersected throughout her life.

Nan Goldin

Starting in the 1970s, Nan Goldin used her camera to document her own life and that of her friends, her alternative family. Her pictures revealed intimacy and violence, love and abuse, sexuality and addiction, in the downtown punk scene of New York in the 1980s, a world subsequently devastated by AIDS. She adopted a slide show format to be a mirror to her friends, and ended up mirroring their lives to the outside world.

Vered Nissim

Multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and art consultant Vered Nissim was born in Israel to Iraqi immigrant parents. She identifies as a Mizrahi feminist; her art revolves around her gender, ethnic, and class identities, and she aims to give voice to marginalized women in Israeli society.

Shula Keshet

Shula Keshet is an Israeli Mizrahi feminist activist, an artist, and a curator. Her activism strives for justice for underprivileged women and men in Israel; as a Mizrahi feminist artist and curator, she has created several exhibitions.

Marti Friedlander

London-born Marti Friedlander migrated to New Zealand in 1958. She became one of the country’s most outstanding and influential photographers in portraiture, photo-journalism, photo-books, and “street” photography. Her photographs still live vigorous public lives in exhibitions, books, and periodicals published after her death.

Elsa Dorfman, 1937-2020

Elsa Dorfman is best known as a photographer who used a large format Polaroid camera to make 23 by 36 inch portraits of a wide range of individuals, from celebrities such as Allen Ginsberg, Andrea Dworkin, Bob Dylan, and members of the Big Apple Circus, to children, families with their pets, babies, and couples.

May 9, 2019

A Century of Hats and Spirit

Leann Shamash

A new mother/daughter photo project encourages viewers to challenge ageism and value the experiences of the elderly.

Topics: Activism, Photography, Family

Delegates at the First National Conference for Women (1977), by Diana Mara Henry

November 13, 2017

Photographic Memory: On Being the Official Photographer of the First National Women's Conference

Diana Mara Henry

When, in 1977, Abzug and Senator Patsy Mink called for a national women’s conference, I foresaw that being hired to photograph the First National Women’s Conference as official photographer might be the most historic assignment of my lifetime.

Topics: Women's Rights, Photography

Topics: Art, Photography, Holocaust

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