The FotoFest Biennial 2022 central exhibition, If I Had a Hammer, considers the ways artists utilize images to unpack the ideological underpinnings that inspire collective cultural movements around the globe. Together, the twenty-three included artists propose alternative techniques of seeing and engaging with the world, working with both conventional and new media to shed light on the systems that encourage social theories and political imaginaries to become dogma at the click of a shutter or tap of a button.
If I Had a Hammer explores both artistic and activist interventions into the structures of contemporary image-production, calling attention to how these structures both reflect and inform our perception of the world, historical narratives, and the agency to engage in collective cultural discourse. The exhibition proposes that the systems and structures that support ideological formation such as historical archives, digital media networks, sociopolitical organizing campaigns, and infrastructural and territorial developments, are inextricably linked to the history and development of photography and image technology. Through disparate approaches, the artists in
If I Had a Hammer offer strategies to resist and replace legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and systemic violence by exploiting the language and material of image-production and media circulation. In doing so, the artists show how images can be used to both support progressive movements as well as reinforce and bolster systemic inequities.The exhibition borrows its title from Pete Seegar and Lee Hays's 1949 protest song of the same name, which was written as a response to growing ideological divides and violence against progressive artists and thinkers in the U.S. during the era of Red Scare McCarthyism. Throughout this period, artists, activists, authors, and musicians, including Seegar and Hays, were made to testify in broadcasted congressional hearings and defend their right to free speech and protest. This exhibition uses the historical context within which "If I Had a Hammer" was written as a starting point to explore how those who assert ideological supremacy often do so by employing the very tools used by the communities and individuals they hope to suppress. They use the tools of discursive circulation: broadcast media, text, song, art, and images.The scope of
If I Had a Hammer is expansive, including international perspectives on ever-changing ideologies in relationship to the contemporary, global nature of media circulation and ideological development. At the heart of this interrogation is an examination of the methods artists employ to create archives that subvert the hegemonic anthropological and documentary gaze, play against traditional forms of photography, and imagine alternative political scenarios while resisting a singular, finished, final, or decisive image.
Evans, Steven: -
Steven Evans is a curator, writer, artist, and the Executive Director and curator of the award-winning arts organization FotoFest, based in Houston, Texas. He is responsible for exhibitions and the artistic direction of FotoFest and its Biennial. Among many exhibitions organized for FotoFest and other venues, Evans produced and oversaw the development of the FotoFest Biennial's central exhibitions for African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other (2020), India: Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art (2018), and Changing Circumstances: Looking at the Future of the Planet (2016). He co-edited the related hardcover books African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other (2020), INDIA (2018), and Changing Circumstances (2016), as well as recent FotoFest publication Velvet Generation (2019). Prior to FotoFest, Evans worked with a wide range of artists and collaborators as managing director of the Dia: Beacon Museum in New York State and as director of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas. His curatorial work incorporates a range of approaches with a focus on photography, moving image, and new media art.
Fields, Max: -
Max Fields is the Associate Curator and Director of Publishing at FotoFest. He has presented numerous exhibitions and has written for and overseen the production of multiple museum and gallery publications. Recent projects include Public Life (2020-21), African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other (with Mark Sealy, 2020), and Gareth Long: Kidnappers Foil at the Blaffer Art Museum (Houston, 2019-20). His recent exhibition, In Place of an Index, was produced and presented with the 2021 Texas Biennial and was co-curated with Ryan Dennis and Evan Garza.
Hvadesign: - HvADesign is a multidisciplinary design studio based in New York City.
International, Fotofest: - FotoFest is a Houston-based contemporary arts organization co-founded in 1983 by documentary photographers and journalists, Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss, and European gallery director, Petra Benteler. FotoFest is dedicated to advancing photography and visual culture through the presentation of exhibitions, public programs, and publications. The examination of social, cultural, and political histories and contemporary life through the lens of photography and related media is central to FotoFest's mission. In addition to the organization's year-round programming, FotoFest organizes a city-wide biennial project in the form of large-scale central exhibitions, curated lectures, performances, a symposium, and film programs. The organization also hosts several professional development programs, including annually-held Meeting Place Portfolio Reviews, which host over 400 artists and 150 professionals working in the field of art and photography. Through its Literacy Through Photography program, FotoFest organizes K-12 classroom-based learning projects designed to encourage creativity and strengthen student writing, comprehension, and expression, reaching thousands of students. A platform for art and ideas since 1983, FotoFest is committed to promoting lasting international dialogue, cultural exchange, scholarship, and community enrichment by working with artists, audiences, academics, curators, and influential figures in art, culture, and society.
Sadao, Amy: -
Amy Sadao received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 1995 and an MA in Comparative Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2000. She was Executive Director of Visual AIDS for the Arts from 2002 to 2012 and served as the Daniel W. Dietrich II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia from 2012-19. Sadao lives in Philadelphia and is currently the Program Director for Denniston Hill and has upcoming exhibitions at Columbia University in New York City and REDCAT in Los Angeles.
