Looking at Family: Sara Macel & Thomas Holton
In-Person Artist Talk and Book Signing at Launch Photo Books in NYC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2023
7PM ET
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
59 Orchard Street
New York City
(212) 244-9081
ABOUT THE EVENT
When viewing family photos, the viewer might assume that the photographer is either an insider or an outsider - a family member or a more objective observer, such as a hired photographer. The photographer’s perspective is not so clear cut, however, in the work of artists Sara Macel and Thomas Holton, who each weave stories about families using photographs to reveal the complex ties that bind people together.
Sara’s newest book, What Did the Deep Sea Say (Kehrer Verlag, 2022), began when she found a suitcase of her deceased grandmother’s photographs, sending her on a journey to discover how the stories of three generations of women - her grandmother, her mother, and herself - intersect. She is an insider, but as a visual storyteller, maintains a critical distance from the events, creating her own narrative in a dream-like amalgamation of both her own and her family’s archival images.
Conversely, Thomas’ position shifts from outsider to insider as he documents the Asian American immigrant experience by focusing on one Chinese family living in New York City’s Chinatown in his book, The Lams of Ludlow Street (Kehrer Verlag, 2016). The book poignantly and honestly explores the Lams’ evolving life story from an increasingly intimate perspective as Thomas becomes part of the family over the course of 20 years.
At this in-person event, co-hosted by Launch Photo Books and photography education platform PhotoPhlo, Sara and Thomas will share insights into their work. Presentations and a brief Q&A with PhotoPhlo founder Matthew Baum will be followed by a book signing.
Sara Macel is a photographer from Houston, TX now based in Queens, NY. Her photographic work is narratively-based and often deals with themes of the archive, family, memory, and place. She received her BFA in Photography + Imaging from NYU and her MFA in Photography, Video & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, The New Yorker, Wired, PDN, and HuffPost. Sara has exhibited internationally and is in various private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Cleveland Museum of Art. Some of her recent honors include PDN's 30 Photographers to Watch, Light Work Artist-in-Residency, and she is a recipient of the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship. Her monographs include "May the Road Rise to Meet You," "Kiss & Tell," and "What Did the Deep Sea Say." She is currently the Photography Program Coordinator and Instructor at SUNY Rockland CC. She has previously held academic positions at CUNY Kingsborough CC. Macel lectures around the country at academic and cultural institutions including NYU, Syracuse University, and University of Houston.
Thomas Holton is a photographer and educator based in New York City. He received a BA in cultural anthropology from Kenyon College and his MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts. His ongoing project, The Lams of Ludlow Street, has documented the life of a single Chinese-American family living in Manhattan’s Chinatown over the last 20 years. The project was published as a book in 2016 by Kehrer Verlag and has been shown in the United States and abroad at venues including The Museum of the City of New York, the New York Public Library, and the China-Lishui International Photography Festival. The Lams of Ludlow Street will be featured in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2022. The work has also been published by the New York Times, Aperture, The Guardian and many others periodicals. Holton has taught at the International Center of Photography and was co-founder of the VisuaLife photography program, working with at-risk teenagers in collaboration with the Children’s Aid Society in New York City. He is currently the photography instructor at the Trinity School in New York City.