FlakPhoto Midwest Flat File

Arts + Literature Laboratory, PhotoMidwest, and FlakPhoto Projects present the FlakPhoto Midwest Flat File exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, on display from Tuesday, September 17 to Saturday, November 9, 2024.

Each year, a cohort of ten artists will be invited to add up to five works to a flat file drawer for a two year cycle. For 2024-2026, FlakPhoto Projects director Andy Adams curated the inaugural Flat File cohort of ten Midwest photographers and features work from artists living in Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

The public can view the work with staff assistance during ALL’s gallery hours, by appointment, or through an online gallery (details forthcoming).

A reception for the FlakPhoto Midwest Flat File exhitibion and other PhotoMidwest Festival 2024 exhibits on display at Arts + Literature Laboratory will be held on Friday, September 27, 6:00-8:00pm.

Deanna Dikeman

Deanna Dikeman was born in 1954 in Sioux City, Iowa, USA. She has photographed her midwestern family and surroundings since 1985 when she left a corporate job to try a photography class. She graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Biology and a M.S. in Management. Deanna received the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship in 1996, the United States Artists Booth Fellowship in 2008, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography in 2023.

Deanna’s largest and longest photography project documented her parents and other family in her hometown. That work included 27 years of photographs of her parents waving goodbye to her as she left from visiting them. “A Photographer’s Parents Wave Farewell” was one of the top 25 stories of 2020 in The New Yorker. She has two books published by Chose Commune: Leaving and Waving in 2021 and Relative Moments in 2024. Leaving and Waving was a finalist for the 2021... Read More

Keith Taylor

Keith Taylor is a photographer and printmaker working with traditional, historical, and contemporary photo processes. Originally from London, Taylor has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 1996.

Taylor's work has been widely exhibited across the U.S., the U.K., and Europe. He is a five-time recipient of fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and he was awarded a place in the Minnesota Center for Book Arts/Jerome Foundation mentorship program.

Sarah Stellino

Sarah Stellino’s photographs explore topics of intimacy, identity and legacy. She is driven by a deep sense of the importance of record-keeping and legacy-making and the impact that can have on future generations. She lives and works in Madison, WI and was a 2022 Finalist for the Women Artists Forward Fund. Sarah has exhibited work in Manhattan, New York and Madison, Wisconsin.

Erinn Springer

Erinn Springer is a photographer from Dunn County, Wisconsin. Embracing the character of rural life, her work is inspired by the cycles of the land, memory, and mortality. Reviewed in The New Yorker as "A Tender and Knowing Portrait of Life in Rural Wisconsin," Erinn’s work has been referred to as an anthropological and intimate view of the midwest. It has garnered features and commissions by The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Die Zeit, M Le Monde, NPR, Vogue, among others. Erinn’s debut monograph, "Dormant Season," published in the fall of 2023, will be the subject of her 2025 solo show at The Museum of Wisconsin Art.

R.J. Kern

R. J. Kern is an American artist whose work investigates ideas of home, ancestry, and a sense of place. His portraits focus on intimate, interdependent relationships of people, animals, and landscape. Accolades include Critical Mass Top 50 (2018, 2021), CENTER 2017 Choice Award Winner (Curator’s Choice, First Place), Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition 160 (Silver Medal), 2017; PDN’s 30 2018; and six grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Kern was the Commemorative Artist for the 2019 Minnesota State Fair. Monographs include The Sheep and the Goats (Kehrer Verlag, 2017) and The Unchosen Ones (MW Editions, 2021). Public collections include Minneapolis Institute of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He thrives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Mike Sinclair

Photographer Mike Sinclair’s subjects have included state and county fairs, parades, Fourth of July celebrations, parks, amateur musicals, artist’s studios, and the parks, boulevards, sidewalks and architecture of his hometown Kansas City. His most recent book The Paseo & Ward Parkway was self-published in 2022. His 2016 book, The Nelson, looked at Kansas City’s new relationship with its most prestigious institution. His photographs are in several public and private collections including The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Charlotte Street Award.

Madeline Cass

Madeline Cass is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lincoln, Nebraska. She primarily works within photography, poetry, artist books, painting, and drawing. She explores the notion of growth and decay, with a focus on human impact on the landscape.

In 2017 she earned a BFA in studio art with an emphasis in photography from the University of Nebraska.Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her book 'how lonely, to be a marsh' was featured at Fotobokfestival Oslo, and has been collected by institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art Library, The National Gallery of Art Library, The Getty Research Institute Library, and The Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s Hirsch Library. She has contributed photographs to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic, among others.

Pao houa Her

Pao Houa Her is a Hmong American artist whose practice engages primarily with legacies and potentials of landscape, portraiture, and documentary photographic traditions and aesthetics, creating works that examine identity, longing, and belonging in Hmong diasporic communities.

Among Her’s solo exhibitions include Paj quam ntuj / Flowers of the Sky at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2022–2023), Emplotment at Or Gallery in Vancouver, Canada (2020), and My grandfather turned into a tiger at Midway Contemporary Ar in Minneapolis (2018). Recently exhibited in the Whitney Biennial (2022), her work has been included in group exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC; the Milwaukee Art Museum; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; among many others. A prizewinner in the 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition (2022), Her was the recipient of the McKnight... Read More

Philip Heying

Photographer Philip Heying, born in 1959 in Kansas City, Missouri, developed a passion for photography during middle school, mastering black and white film and print development. After earning a BFA in painting in 1983, he transitioned to photography during a pivotal elective course.

In Lawrence, Kansas, he formed a significant friendship with writer William S. Burroughs, influencing his shift to photography. In 1985, Philip's journey to Paris enriched his photographic practice. Returning in 1986, he embraced a career in commercial photography, joining the Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography. Collaborating with Burroughs in 1987, he exhibited in Paris in 1988, leading to a residency and sales in France. Over seven years in Paris, Philip held solo exhibitions, gaining commercial success.

Returning to the U.S. in 1997, he worked at Irving Penn's studio, transitioning to freelance editorial photography by 2001. He maintained a connection... Read More

Rich-Joseph Facun

Rich-Joseph Facun’s work has been recognized by Photolucida’s Critical Mass, CNN, Juxtapoz, British Journal of Photography, The Washington Post, American Photography, Feature Shoot, It’s Nice That, The Image Deconstructed, The Photo Brigade, Looking At Appalachia, and Pictures of the Year International.

Additionally, his photography has been commissioned by various publications, including NPR, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, AARP, The Associated Press, Reuters, Vox, Adweek, Education Week, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The FADER, Frank 151, Topic, The Guardian (UK), The National (UAE), Telerama (France), The Globe and Mail (Canada) and Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), among others.

FlakPhoto Midwest Flat File

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