Above are installation shots of my part of the group exhibition in “Whatever Was Splendid” at the Fotofest 2010 Biennial. The gallery space is extremely large and takes over two floors of 1113 Vine Street Studios so there’s quite a number of works by each artist.

I feel incredibly fortunate to be in a group exhibition amongst such a high caliber of artists. Many people at Fotofest asked how I got to be a part of the exhibition and if I had been to Fotofest two years prior — and the simple answer is that Aaron Schuman (of SeeSaw Magazine) emailed me after seeing my work on Nymphoto and I have never been to Houston, Texas. (Thoughts on age-ism in a later post.) I met a lot of artists who attend these reviews like class reunions. To each his own.

Come opening night, Fotofest organized bus shuttles to galleries where the last destination was the reception/party at Vine Street Studios, where “Whatever Was Splendid,” is installed. I did not see the exhibition prior to that night but was so pleasantly surprised at the wonderful space and the amount of work each artist exhibited. There was so much work, it took me awhile to find where my photographs were. I even asked a staff member due to the massive crowds coming in and the maze-like space. (PS. I’m upstairs!)

During the night I received lots of great feedback from the local Houstonians as well as gallery/museum/curator folks, which really made me feel like I should give myself a good pat on the back. Asians flocked to me and felt at home with my images of the kitchen as well. It was an amazing experience! Later on the evening, the mayor made an appearance so it was glitz and glamor with body guards and cameras all hustling to the VIP tent where curators and artists were briefly introduced. There I met a bunch of photographers who I mainly know of online such as Will Steacy, Brian Ulrich, Hank Willis Thomas, Todd Hido — but also met other great people like Richard Mosse, Greg Stimac, and more. (Tema, you were missed!)

The trip was a completely new experience and overall, it was successful.

I can’t thank Aaron and Fotofest for the opportunity and all the support!

In the next few posts, I’ll write about the artists I met, thoughts on age-ism, and possibly some huge changes in my life.

Press news:

Aaron, Richard, and I were also interviewed by the Houston Public Radio early one morning. I was a bundle of nerves so coherence wasn’t on the plate but it’s great that I made it on the radio, right? Thank you Meghan Hendley for the opportunity.

Houston Public Radio, listen here.

The exhibition was also featured in The Telegraph last week.

Fotofest exhibitions is also featured in CultureMap.

Review of the exhibition as a whole from the Houston Press.

All artists in the main Fotofest exhibitions are published in the biennial catalog, which is a hefty 507 pages! It is beautifully printed and includes an introduction by Charlotte Cotton and an accompanying exhibition essay by Aaron. You can order a copy here.

Also, James Pomerantz of APhotoStudent.com announced I was the winner of his film giveaway. Thanks again, James!

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Houses, 2008, from Foreigners in Paradise, © Jane Tam

Just wanted to update you all on some upcoming shows and what I’ve been up to.

This Friday, November 6th, I will be in a two-person exhibition with the talented Shen Wei at Nemo Design Gallery in Portland, Oregon. I will be showing ten photographs from my “Foreigners in Paradise” project.

From the website:
Nemo Design is proud to present the work of acclaimed photographers Shen Wei and Jane Tam in Reflecting China: Gendered Visions from the Diaspora. Reflecting China combines work from Shen Wei’s Chinese Sentiment Series with Jane Tam’s Foreigners in Paradise Series. The result is a collection of work that explores issues of Chinese identity, gender, diaspora, cultural memory, imagined communities, longing and belonging. Both artists have been internationally recognized for their work. Shen is the recipient of many awards and was named as one of fifteen in the “new generation of photo pioneers” by American Photo magazine in 2007 as well as, one of the PDN’s “30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch” in 2008. Jane Tam was awarded with the Emerging Photographer Award at the Pingyao Photography Festival in China.

Reflecting China is part of the community programming for the Portland Art Museum’s China Design Now exhibit.

At the end of this year, I’m taking a trip to Hong Kong to continue my “Asleep At Sea” series. It will be about 2.5 weeks of shooting and I’m so excited for it!

After the new year, I am also showing work at the Fotofest Biennial 2010. The show, “Whatever Was Splendid,” is curated by Aaron Schuman, of Seesaw Magazine and incorporates an amazing roster of artists that I am most humbled to be included with.

From the website:
Aaron Schuman explores the legacy and continued influence of a “thoroughly modern photographic figure,” Walker Evans. “The striking similarities between Evans’s time and our own have become all too clear,” says Mr. Schuman. “Bearing this in mind, I began to investigate his profound influence on how the United States is still responded to, regarded, recognized and represented within photography today.” The artists in Mr. Schuman’s exhibition are: Will Steacy, Michael Schmelling, Greg Stimac, Tema Stauffer, Jason Lazarus, Jane Tam, Richard Mosse, Craig Mammano, Todd Hido, Hank Willis Thomas, and RJ Shaughnessy.

Reflecting China: Gendered Visions from the Diaspora
Two-Person Exhibition with Jane Tam and Shen Wei
Nemo Design Gallery
1875 SE Belmont St.Portland, OR 97214
Nov. 6 – 23, 2009
Opening Reception: Nov. 6, 2009 from 6-10pm

Whatever Was Splendid
Fotofest Biennial 2010, curated by Aaron Schuman
Vine Street Studios
1113 Vine Street
Houston, Texas
March 12 – Apr 25, 2010

exterior shot from PIP website

a shot of the exhibition via Jamason Chen

Since I couldn’t make the cross-global trip to China for the Pingyao International Photography Festival, I made sure my awesome curator, Jamason Chen, take some photos of the event and whatnot. Seems like I also won an award there! My project, “Foreigners in Paradise” has won the award of a Ping Yao International Photographic Festival 2008 Emerging Photographer.

Stalking the festival website, looking for more information and using google translate, I finally found my name amongst the news article (2008映像杯中国平遥国际摄影大展新人奖: 谭珍玲 with 10 other talented artists~).

i miss you, laos.

(Kind of lazy to write a real post so here’s an email I sent out)

Hello all,

Hope you all are having a fantastic holiday. I am currently in Hong Kong for winter break and just got back from my vacation in Thailand. The five days in Thailand was a great vacation for me to take a break from photography. Not one roll shot; instead, I gave the digital point and shoot to my mother so the whole vacation is recorded by my technologically-challenged mom. So now back in Hong Kong and hopefully get a lot more rolls shot of my family and everything Hong Kong.

Anyways, I got a great email stating that I got the scholarship to go to SPE Nationals in Denver, Colorado in March! I am super excited and very anxious about the news. There will be lots of new work to show since the last SPE Regional conference.

Many many thanks to those who have supported me and I will keep you all posted!

Happy Holidays!

Going to Pick Ginkgo Nuts at Fort Greene Park © Jane Tam

The semester is finally over (…still have one 8-page paper to write though). I will be going to Hong Kong for the majority of my winter break. It will be a great little break from the claustrophobic Syracuse. Although it was first intended to be a vacation, there’s also a major agenda to make work there. I’ll be bringing a 4×5 field camera and a Mamiya 7 so that’ll be a blast going through security at airports.

Hope everyone has a great winter holiday and I’m sure I’ll be able to blog from there.

is it May yet?

I’m going to slowly recap my SE Asia trip since I’m bound to forget everything within a year. It was an experience and was very eye opening.. some Law and Order shit going down at times.

We flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok on the 22nd of Dec. There was a layover of 2 or 3 hours so we were lucky enough to chill in the Bangkok Airways lounge. Before going to the lounge, we wanted some grub and took our chances at dining at a finer ramen place. Thai people must not like my sis or I because we were (not) greeted by the worst waitress. She just stood there, no words, just with her pencil and paper, impatiently waiting for us to order. (I knew then.. that Thailand wasn’t going to be good)

Anyways, we took a pathetic propeller plane to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Home to their national pride, Angkor Wat.

We had a personal Tuk Tuk driver during our entire stay in Cambodia. It was weird because we would tell him approximately how long we wanted to stay in an area. I dunno, the whole idea of having someone wait on me was a little awkward. On our first day out to see the temples on our own, our driver, Mr. Vandeth, was very much interested in chatting with us. He lives with his wife’s family and owes his brother-in-law a shitload of money for buying a tuk tuk. Basically his wife’s family makes the money and he has a lot to repay. Mr. Vandeth was very nice though and showed us his home and his brother-in-law’s stash of alligators (worth $5k each. he had about 15). His tiny little room which houses his wife and two sons compared to his bro-in-law’s massive house.

Cambodia has a way of making you feel guilty.

So the first day we set out temple hopping, we didn’t have a tour guide. Basically roamed about temples with our Lonely Planet, not really caring at all about the history and just sightseeing. It was enjoyable until we got to the 3rd temple and we were just thinking “ok.. and i have 2 more days of looking at temples…hmm.” Besides that we just chilled on our own, took lame photos, made fun of tourists, and avoided begging children.

Oh the children of Cambodia. They are smart, that’s for sure. As adorable yet sad these children are, they are intense when it comes to begging. They know how cute they are, they follow you for blocks asking for candy, money, or to buy their postcards. Some make more than their parents from begging. You help one but you cant help them all and it’s a serious problem. It leads to other issues like sex with children thanks to tourists. A retired American couple who now lives in Thailand told us that prostitution of children was bad in Thailand but very much worse in Cambodia. I mean besides seeing old white men with their young Cambodian ladies, we saw old men with Cambodian families, possibly buying the whole family of young and old. You’d think this stuff only appears on Dateline and would never cross your path but once it does, it is some traumatizing sight to see.

The history of Cambodia starts off on a high note but continues to fall. It is trying its hardest to develop and keep up with neighboring countries but gets much of its help from other countries like (South?) Korea, France, USA, etc. Even the paved roads to some temples are only 3 years old and provided by the Koreans. It’s good that the country is getting help but during the whole trip it felt like their culture was very much exploited and nothing was really the people’s anymore.

The entry fee to see the temples go to some big hotel management. Who knows why they seem to “own” the temples. There isn’t much preservation of the temples, very minimal; we’ve seen that many pieces were broken just from tourists/locals touching them too much or worse picking pieces up and accidentally breaking them. Our best tour guide, Sam, brought us to see Angkor Wat and thankfully we learned about the culture, how temples were built piece by piece, the stories carved on walls, why Cambodia is the way it is present day, etc. He was pretty much the only highlight of Cambodia because otherwise I would have felt just completely overwhelmed by everything I saw. Though the stories often were kind of guilt-ridden, it provided a backbone as to why you see the things you see today.

I probably will not go back to Cambodia because it’s one of those “once in a lifetime” experiences that does not need to be revisited.

Other moments worth noting:

-Our hotel did not provide blankets.. so I slept with bath towels.
-Angelina Jolie is like their national pride. They love Tomb Raider like it’s god-given.
-Naked children run amok.
-There are flies in restaurants/everywhere. (only noted b/c there was nothing of this sort in Laos)
-Our 2nd tour guide sucked.
-Nobody can comprehend us being from the USA, likely because they don’t understand immigration.
-The Siem Reap airport was 99% filled with tourists. Local Cambodians don’t travel much or will probably never be able to afford an airplane ticket.
-Don’t wear Converse Chuck Taylors if traveling in South East Asia.