Photographer Sally Mann speaks at UH event

In a semi-autobiographical illustrated talk, Sally Mann exploree the issues that have preoccupied her: memory and loss, history and its legacies, identity and place, childhood and photographic truth. One of the most honored photographers of our time, her works are collected by most major American art galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American. The recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Mann has also received prestigious fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"We are delighted to bring Sally Mann to the University of Houston. Sally Mann was a natural choice for our spring event. Through her lens we have been challenged to see our world in new ways-and this is exactly what Visual Studies at the University of Houston is all about," says Dr. Tracy Xavia Karner, Director of the Visual Studies initiative.

Mann's most recent collection "Deep South" highlights the magical, almost ethereal landscape generations of Southerners have inhabited. Her expert use of light and composition evokes the controversies and personal histories of Southerners as told from the landscape, from the legacy of slavery to the Civil Rights era.

"One of the most provocative and influential photographers of our time, Sally Mann's images are beautiful, compelling, and evocative. Her work has continued to push boundaries and facilitate new understandings of childhood, family, death, and how memory can be encapsulated in landscape," says Dr. Karner.

A true Southern artist, Mann has steeped herself the South's history and culture, continually searching to capture the spirit of time and place. She states, "Our history of defeat and loss set us apart from other Americans and because of it, we embrace the Proustian concept that the only true paradise is a lost paradise. But we know that love emerges from this loss, becomes memory and that memory becomes art."

Sally Mann still calls her native Virginia home, where she was born in 1951 in Lexington. She began studying photography at the Putney School in Vermont. She spent two years at Bennington College and graduated from Hollins College with a masters degree in writing.

The Visual Studies initiative at the University of Houston is unique in the US because of the breadth and depth of its interdisciplinary approach, including faculty from more than a dozen departments. Visual Studies examines the production, reception and interpretation of aspects of culture that communicate through visual imagery. Visual Studies will enrich the educational opportunities for UH students, faculty and the Greater Houston community.