Reservoir: Loneliness, Effectively-Being and Photography

In February 2025, the Los Angeles Center of Photography initiated a brand new and progressive photographic generator, designed to create a shared repository of responses to the worldwide loneliness disaster via visible storytelling. It was concepted and developed by Jennifer Pritchard, and Dr. Rotem Rozental (Executive Director of LACP, Curator and Project Lead). Six International educators had been invited: Mishka Henner (UK) / Erik Kessels (NL) / George Nobechi (Japan) / Aline Smithson (CA, USA) / Penelope Umbrico (NY, USA) / Rodrigo Valenzuela (CA, USA), and over 40 artists participated on this 9 month initiative.

Opening on January twenty ninth on the the Los Angeles Center of Photography, from 6 – 8pm, the exhibition will characteristic a expansive assortment of photographic and video responses to Loneliness created over the past 9 months. The artists embrace Lynne Breitfeller (NJ), Annette LeMay Burke (CA), Julia Buteux (RI), Chung-Ping Cheng (CA), Cathy Cone (VT), Karen Constine (CA), David Ellis (CA), Allyson Ely (CA), Nancy Farese (CA), Leslie Gleim (HI), Bootsy Holler (CA), Rohina Hoffman (CA), Valerie Horvath (WA), Cynthia Johnston (MA), Sandra Klein (CA), Ana Leal (Brazil), Dana Long Kim (WA), T. Chick McClure (CA), Lisa McCord (CA), Christina McFaul (CA), Stacy Mehrfar (NY), Diane Meyer (CA), Joan Morse (WA) , Karen Pape (VA), Gillian Peckham (WA), Carl Pfirman (CA), Olivia Phare (AZ), Wendy Ploger (AZ), Mario Rodriguez (FL), Rosalie Rosenthal (KY), Jacque Rupp (CA), Patricia Sandler (CA), Asiya al-Sharabi (VA/Egypt), Lisa Slivka (WA), Elisabeth Smolarz (NY), Donna Tramatozzi (MA), MG Vander Elst (NY), Junko Yokota (Ill), Ada Zielińska (POL).

Dr. Rotem Rozental shares the idea:

Much like reservoirs regulate the move and storage of water, offering a way of stability for his or her communities, this invitation-only collaborative venture incubates new approaches via inventive follow, analysis, and engagement.

Extending and amplifying LACP’s dedication to nurturing well-being and connectedness via visible storytelling, this multi-year venture brings collectively artists, grasp academics, artwork facilities, curators, publishers, medical establishments, psychological well being specialists, and know-how innovators to incubate, develop, and create groundbreaking tasks, anchored within the assembly level of visible applied sciences, psychological and bodily well-being and the ebbs and flows of human connection.

Cohorts of artists and mentors representing a wide selection of places, approaches, ages, nationalities, and lived experiences will create new works that deal with the pervasiveness of loneliness in all areas of life—from our shared existence with know-how to ageism and the inventive course of.

Each cohort explores a sub-theme chosen by the artist. The cohorts and artists work together with each other via joint classes, talks by visitor audio system, and crits designed to forge a neighborhood throughout geographies and variations, looking for to beat loneliness by nurturing a world community of friends.

Background:

In 2000, political scientist Robert Putnam steered America is changing into a nation of loners, who lose belief of their establishments as they retreat from life in neighborhood to solitude. And it appears issues have solely gotten worse within the many years that adopted. A research revealed in 2023 examined 1649 grownup individuals from Norway, the UK, and Australia, and highlighted a direct relation between time spent on social media and an elevated feeling of loneliness. Paradoxically, the extra technologically related we’re, the extra alone and remoted we really feel. The Covid pandemic, political and social polarization, international wars, and financial shifts— these exterior elements contribute to emotions of isolation and detachment. These points are additional exasperated in a spot like Los Angeles, the place bodily topographies, distances, and entry to transportation impression emotional landscapes and contribute to a way of isolation.

About the Los Angeles Center of Photography: From its house in Downtown Los Angeles, LACP allows communities to seize, interpret, and reimagine the person and cultural conflicts and the inventive combustion that form Los Angeles and affect the world. Each yr, LACP affords lots of of workshops and courses of all ranges and genres on-line and in-person, it displays the work of over 300 photographers in digital and in-person gallery exhibitions, that are free and open to the general public. Additionally, LACP companions with a number of organizations to supply images and visible literacy training for youth and youngsters in underserved communities.

Instagram: @la_centerofphoto

Mehfar states : To make these images, I expose expired medium-format movie to the blue sky, then open the again of the digital camera, intentionally flooding the movie with mild. The movie fails, overexposes, fogs. The solar blinds the image airplane, leading to photos that oscillate between recognizable sky and pure abstraction. Each {photograph} possesses distinctive dimensions decided completely by the solar’s fogging of the movie throughout the preliminary publicity.