KINGSTON — The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is partnering with Magnum Foundation to announce the opening of an extraordinary group exhibition of contemporary photographers.
The exhibition, titled Counter Histories, was organized by Magnum Foundation and includes artists Tamara Abdul Hadi, Alan Chin, Naomieh Jovin, Billy H.C. Kwok, and Qiana Mestrich. The installation, coordinated by CPW curator Marina Chao, will be open at CPW, 474 Broadway, Kingston, March 23 through May 26.
The international artists in this exhibition confront difficult histories by reconstructing perspectives that have been omitted from previously accepted or official accounts. Their deeply personal visual narratives are reconstructed out of found images derived from family photo albums, books, magazines, or community archives.
The works in Counter Histories ask probing questions about our construction of the past, such as, What new meanings are suggested by the absences and silences one finds in archives and historical records? How can artists engage with histories that are not photographed? How can these revisionist archives contribute to fuller understandings of the past and future?
Tamara Abdul Hadi’s Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes (2020–ongoing) juxtaposes her own photographs of the Iraqi marshes, along with those taken by her father and other Iraqis, with photographs of the same landscape in a book by a Western author. She asks, Can histories be colonized even in imagination?
Alan Chin’s Chinese American Photo Album (2023) assembles photographs and ephemera he retrieved via an ongoing open call for Chinese New Yorkers to share family histories that document the role of Chinese Americans in the history of US immigration.
Naomieh Jovin’s Gwo Fanm (2017-ongoing) uses images from her Haitian-American family photo albums, as well as original photography and voice memos to show her female relatives’ lives, even as they grieve the loss of their collective history through migration.
Billy H.C. Kwok’s work For So Many Years When I Close My Eyes (2023) documents the story and archive of Yu Lai Wai-Ling, a mother in search of her autistic son Yu Man-Hon, whose disappearance from Hong Kong in 2000 was national news. Her archive includes letters and portraits sent to her by men who claimed to be her lost son.
Qiana Mestrich began @WorkingWOC: Towards a History of Women of Color in the Workplace (2022–ongoing) when she could not find visual images of Black American women workers. Her collages reinsert Black women into this gap in the histories of global capitalism.
The opening reception for Counter Histories will take place 5-7 p.m. March 23 at CPW’s gallery, 474 Broadway, Kingston.
