SEPTEMBER 5 - OCTOBER 4, 2020
BEING SEEN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANN ROSEN

OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, SEPT. 12, 4-8PM.
with Social Distancing guidelines:
For the opening reception 12 people will be allowed in the space at a time. To reserve a time slot please contact hanne@fivemyles.org

Invoking intimacy is at the heart of Ann Rosen's artistic process. Her book In the Presence of Family, published in 2018, shows the countless ways families are created. The warm bond between the sitters and the photographer leaves a trace in each photograph.
The photographs in Being Seen came out of an art and photography workshop the artist conducted with women who lived in a shelter in Brooklyn. The women collaborated with the artist on these portraits; the photographs reflect the way the participants wanted to be seen. Several women decided to share their life stories with the public through texts and other media, also included in the exhibition. As in each photograph taken by Rosen, these subjects look into the camera and pose, sometimes with humor, and always with pride.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
My photographs of women were inspired by a concern for the growing crisis of homelessness and its relationship to mental illness. These portraits capture the instability, uncertainty and complexity connected with shelter living and the struggle to recreate a life. These women are subjects calling on us—the observers—to consider our relationship with them and to ponder the dichotomy between subject and viewer—a mutuality that cuts through race, gender, class and diversity. These are women, who despite their circumstances are proud of whoever and whatever they are; pushing aside the status quo values and judgments that attempt to prescribe who they can be.