Please join us for an evening of public dialogue between photographer Casey Joiner and Leah Hennessy, Creative Director of New Orleans Airlift and Music Box Village. Joiner and Hennessy will discuss Joiner's solo exhibition, Surrounded by Natural Causes, and Joiner's photography practice as a whole. Closing reception immediately to follow.
ABOUT CASEY JOINER
Casey Joiner is a photographer in New Orleans, LA. Her practice is loosely rooted in the documentary tradition, beholden to the actuality of her immediate surroundings. Her approach to image selection is intended to be non-hierarchical, employing the fundamental grammar of light, shadow, color to produce evocative images, rather than relying on strongly narrative content to tell her stories. For Joiner, the productive capacity of the photographic medium lies in its accessibility and availability to a wide array of interpretations. Her photographs have a formalist conviction, democratic vernacular and a magical realist attitude. Joiner’s work is informed by her affection for places full of peculiar nonsense and deep struggle, slow things, long standing traditions, and growing up in the Deep South. Matter-of-fact in their sentimentality and beholden only to the actual, her pictures speak in the abstract of memory, identity, celebration and perpetual care. The exhibition will run concurrently with a feature of Joiner’s work in the LOVE issue of San Francisco’s Pamplemousse Magazine.
ABOUT LEAH HENNESSY
Leah Hennessy is a vocalist, curator, and educator. As lead creative producer for the Music Box Village, Leah has collaborated with artists across multiple genres to shape one-of-a-kind, immersive concert experiences. Her creative practice combines tools of improvisation with jazz, blues and folk influences to play with and investigate the tension between traditional forms and experimental expression. As a curator, Leah’s work focuses on promoting pathways for multi-disciplinary collaboration and creativity—particularly as it relates to fostering local arts and culture. From 2013-2015 she was co-director of Gallery 263, a non-profit arts organization that provides a contemporary voice for the arts in Cambridge, MA through an eclectic array of public programs. In addition, Leah is an experienced music educator and has worked across multiple settings as a teaching artist, curriculum designer, and arts integration consultant. Leah holds a B.M. in Jazz Voice and M.M. in Contemporary Improvisation from the New England Conservatory, has three independent releases of her own (Talk Listen Door - Talk Listen Door, Leah Hennessy & Nicholas Morrison - Make Your Cozy Little Corner in the Bright Electrified World, The By & By - Some Bright Morning) and is featured on Anthony Coleman’s 2013 recording, The End of Summer (Tzadik).