Kristen Joy Emack
CV
Kristen Joy Emack is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a Saint Botolph Fellow and a Massachusetts Cultural Arts Fellow. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, in both galleries and photo festivals, and has been published in magazines including Vogue Italia, Nat Geo, OATH, The Horn Book and The Sun. She has lectured at multiple universities including Harvard, Hofstra and Boston University and her work is in multiple private collections and institutions in the US and Europe. Kristen has recently released her first monograph called Cousins, published by L’ARTIERE in Italy.
Kristen is also a public school educator who lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston.
I’ve been photographing my daughter and nieces for a decade. There’s something sacred about the lives of girls, and their innocent, confident relationships to themselves, their world and one another is gravitational. Between them is an intimate and spiritual knowledge, both ordinary and extraordinary, and I aim to capture the brilliance of their communion. I hope when they look back on this work, they’ll see their beauty, and their devotion to each other, and find themselves here, in this work we made together, reflected with love.
The girls have grown up within the frame. Over time their relationship to being photographed has shifted. They became collaborators and have helped with editing, location choice, and offer feedback about where the work should travel. As they matured, and became more confident talking about race, we've been able to discuss the impact of contributing images into the photo world that illuminate positive representation that is neither stereotypical or trendy. There are notable bodies of work about girlhood, but Cousins is unique. It chronicles the lives of girls of color, which is a perspective that still remains under-embraced. Additionally, each frame is fully female. Their connection to each other stays in focus, and their adolescent changes are organic, subtle and unprovocative. Lastly, the girls are invested. They all agree – they want to have a visual presence.
