WORKING WITH image AND TEXT

Kelli Connell & Special Guests
Nicholas Muellner, Ahndraya Parlato, Sara J. Winston, David Campany, Jess T. Dugan, and Lesley A. Martin

DATES: Saturdays, October 10 - November 21, 2026 (no class on November 14)
11 am to 2:00 pm (US Eastern Daylight Time)

All sessions will be recorded and available to participants through May 21, 2027

Kelli Connell will present a 6-week online class that offers an in-depth exploration of the conceptual and practical issues surrounding photographic works that use image and text as a significant strategy in their communication.

Through presentations, Connell will offer participants a variety of strategies employed in the art practices of contemporary artists working with image and text.

Students will achieve an understanding of the influence and importance that image and text have played throughout the history of art and photography, particularly in the 20th century, and based upon that, be able to put this body of knowledge into their own artistic practice. Participants will complete a series of hands-on image-text experiments centered around writing prompts, ekphrastic poetry and working with image archives that will inspire their own work.

This Lecture Series is intended for fine art photographers interested in image/text relationships and is open to photographers of all experience levels.

Kelli Connell, Pictures for Charis, Aperture, 2024

Ahndraya Parlato, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, MACK BOOKS, 2021

Sara J. Winston, Too Visceral to be Intelligent, Self-published, 2026

Ileana M. Ramirez and Sara J. Winston, Sugar Honey Iced Tea, For the Birds Trapped in Airports, 2025

Nicholas Muellner, In Most Tides an Island, 2017

David Campany, A Handful of Dust, MACK BOOKS, 2015

Jess T. Dugan & Charlotte Cotton, Love Pictures, Radius Books, 2026

Each week will consist of two parts: a one-hour session with Kelli, that will include a presentation of diverse artists and working methods, along with hands-on exercises, followed by an hour presentation by a guest artist. Ample time will be provided for Q&A with both Kelli and the Special Guest.

She will cover topics including artists who work with text; writers who work with images; strategies for generating thought-provoking image and text relationships; considerations from a designer’s perspective and from a publisher’s perspective; and topics such as time, autobiography, archival research, politics, memory, poetry, performance and interdisciplinary approaches will be discussed.

Kelli will share the work of Sophie Calle, Teju Cole, Moyra Davey, Michelle Dizon & Viet Le, Jess T Dugan, Odette England, Jim Goldberg, Andres Gonzales, Sabrina Greig, Roni Horn, Laura Larson, Diana Matar, Bernadette Meyer, Duane Michals, Nicholas Muellner, Ahndraya Parlato, Larry Sultan, Ed Templeton, Carmen Winant, and Sara Winston among others, with several of these artists joining us as Special Guests.

KELLI CONNELL

Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer-sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J Paul Getty Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Monographs of her work include Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis published by Aperture and Kelli Connell: Double Life published by DECODE Books. Connell has received fellowships and residencies from The Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, PLAYA, LATITUDE, Light Work, Peaked Hill Trust and The Center for Creative Photography. Connell is a professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Cost: $675 USD

To pay in 2 monthly installments

Please note that the option to register and pay in installments will be available until Sept 4

SCHEDULE*

WEEK 1: Saturday, October 10, from 11 am to 2 pm (ET)

Kelli will open the series with an overview of the course, outlining the image-text based approaches that will be covered over the course of six sessions. Each session will begin with a generative hands-on exercise that utilizes one writing prompt and one image prompt used for inspiration. This first session will focus on artists who utilize time-based structures – diaries, walking, accumulation – as formal strategy and subject matter. Kelli will share time-inspired works by Teju Cole, Joshua Edwards, Albert Hastings, Roni Horn, Jon Horvath, Duane Michals, W.G. Sebald, Ed Templeton, Jason Vaughn and Brad Zellar. Special attention will be given to Bernadette Mayer’s "Memory" (a poetry-image work published by Siglio Press) and exhibited as an installation of images and spoken word at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago.

Photographer, writer, and book artist Nicholas Muellner will join us to discuss his work, with a particular focus on "In Most Tides an Island,", followed by Q&A with participants.

Special Guest: Nicholas Muellner

Nicholas Muellner is an artist and writer whose six single-author books include "Love in a Time of Allegory"" (2026), Lacuna park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography" (2019), "The Amnesia Pavilions" (2012) and "In Most Tide an Island" (2018), which was shortlisted for the Aperture/Paris Photo Photobook Award, and selected as an outstanding book of the year in Artforum. In addition to solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe, his writings have been published by SPBH Editions, MACK Books, Aperture, Radius, Triple Canopy, Foam, Routledge and others.

Muellner has performed slide lectures internationally, including at MoMA P.S.1, The Guggenheim Museum, the Carnegie Museum, The Photographers Gallery, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, the John Gutmann Fellowship, and residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo Colonies, among others. Muellner received a BA in comparative literature from Yale University and an MFA from Temple University. He is founding Co-Director of the Image Text MFA and ITI Press at Cornell University.

WEEK 2: Saturday, October 17, from 11 am to 2 pm (ET)

The presentation today will focus on works rooted in autobiography — the body, birth, motherhood, and shifting identities — and takes a close look at how artists deploy text and image together in an exhibition context with particular attention to the work of Sophie Calle. We will also look at the work of Jennifer Bornstein, Odette England, Jon Henry, Katharine Hubbard, Laura Larson, Diana Matar, B. Ingrid Olson and Jesse Carson, and Carmen Winant.

Ahndraya Parlato will join us to share her work and process, focusing on her book "Who is Changed and Who is Dead", followed by Q&A with participants.

Special Guest: Ahdraya Parlato

Ahndraya Parlato has a BA from Bard College and an MFA from California College of the Arts. She has published four books: "TIME TO KILL" (Mack Books, 2026), "Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead" (Mack Books, 2021), "A Spectacle and Nothing Strange" (Kehrer Verlag, 2016), and "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", (a collaboration with Gregory Halpern, Études Books, 2014).

Additionally, Ahndraya has contributed texts to: "Devotions for Francesca Woodman" (Saint Lucy Books, 2026), "Double Feature" (St. Lucy Books, 2025), "Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Shoot "(Aperture, 2021), and "The Photographer’s Playbook" (Aperture, 2014).

She has exhibited work at: Spazio Labo, in Bologna, Italy, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, The Aperture Foundation, New York, NY, and The Swiss Institute, Milan, Italy. Ahndraya has been awarded residencies at The Ellis Beauregard Foundation, Light Work and The Visual Studies Workshop, and grants from Light Work, the New York Foundation for the Arts and The Joy of Giving Something Foundation. She and has been a nominee for the ICP Infinity Award, the Paul Huf Award from the FOAM Museum in Amsterdam, and the SECCA Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is a 2024 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow.

Ahndraya has taught in the Bard College and Cornell Image Text MFA programs and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

WEEK 3: Saturday, October 24, from 11 am to 2 pm (ET)

This class will begin with an in-class exercise utilizing Viviane Sassen’s "Folio" as inspiration. Kelli’s presentation will focus on photographing and writing about family, and the use of family archives as both subject and material. This session will also focus on how living with a disability can affect everyday home life. We will look at the work of Anne Carson, Moyra Davey, Doug Dubois, Justin Nalley, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Larry Sultan, Andrew Vogelpohl, Erik van der Weijde, and Cecil MacDonald.

In the second part of the session, Sara Winston will join us to discuss her work, with a particular focus on her books "Sugar Honey Iced Tea" and "A Lick and a Promise", followed by Q&A with participants.

Special Guest Artist: Sara J. Winston

Sara J. Winston is a photographer and writer based in New York. She produces photographs for books and exhibitions, writes creative-nonfiction, and makes hybrid image-text photobooks to describe and respond to chronic illness and its ongoing impact on her body, mind, family, and memory. She is the author of several books, among them: "Too Visceral to be Intelligent" (self-published, 2026), "Sugar Honey Iced Tea" (For the Birds Trapped in Airports, 2025), "Foibles & Avoidance" (National Monument Press, 2024), "A Lick and a Promise" (Candor Arts, 2017), and "Homesick" (Zatara Press, 2015).

Sara is Associate Director and Artist in Residence of the Photography Program at Bard College, Co-Chair of the Penumbra Foundation/Image Threads Long Term Photobook Program, and a contributing writer at Collector Daily.

On June 29, 2023, her long-term project about multiple sclerosis care was adapted and published as an op-ed in the New York Times, titled ‘My body is a clock’: The Private Life of Chronic Care.

WEEK 4: Saturday, October 31, from 11 am to 2 pm (ET)

In this session, Kelli opens with a presentation examining image and text in relation to the context of our society’s politics, values, censorship, identities, norms and expectations. We will look at the work of artists who work with found images as they consider the broader impacts of our image-based culture in film, social media, and society. We will look at the work of Barbara Bloom and John Lerner, Sara Cwynar, Jack Latham, Claudia Rankine, Hannah Schleifer, Barbara Ryan Spencer, and Will Steacy.

In the second part of the session, David Campany will join us to discuss his work, with a particular focus on his book "A Handful of Dust", followed by Q&A with participants.

Special Guest: David Campany

David Campany is a curator, writer, editor, educator and Creative Director of the International Center of Photography, New York.

David has worked worldwide with institutions including Tate, Whitechapel Gallery London, MoMA New York, Centre Pompidou, Le Bal Paris, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Fundacion MAPFRE Spain, The Photographer’s Gallery London, ParisPhoto, PhotoLondon, and The National Portrait Gallery London. He has published with Aperture, Steidl, MIT Press, Thames & Hudson, Phaidon, MACK, Frieze, The New Yorker, The FT Weekend, and The Telegraph.

David’s many books include "Indeterminacy: Thoughts on Time, The Image and Race(ism)", co-written with Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (MACK 2022), "Victor Burgin’s Photopath" (MACK 2022), "On Photographs" (Thames & Hudson 2020), "So Present, So Invisible – conversations on photography" (Contrasto 2018), "A Handful of Dust"(MACK 2015), "The Open Road: photography and the American road trip" (Aperture S2014), "Walker Evans: the magazine work" (Steidl 2014), "Gasoline" (MACK 2013), "Jeff Wall: Picture for Women" (MIT Press/ After all 2010), "Photography and Cinema" (Reaktion 2008) and "Art and Photography"(Phaidon 2003). He has written over three hundred essays for monographs, museums, and magazines.

David has a Phd and has taught photography theory and practice at all levels from undergraduate to Phd. For his books and writing he has received the ICP Infinity Award, the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award, the Alice Award, a Deutscher Fotobuchpreis, and the Royal Photographic Society award.

WEEK 5: Saturday, November 7, from 11 am to 2 pm (ET)

This session will focus on intimacy and relationships in image and text works, drawing on the work of Pixy Liao and Takahiro Morooka, Leanne Shapton, Patti Smith, Jenna Rova, Richard Renaldi, Delaney Allen, Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Matthew Finley, and Guillaume Simoneau. In the second part of the session, photographer and artist Jess T. Dugan will join us to discuss their work, with a particular focus on their latest book "Love Pictures" and their collaboration with Charlotte Cotton, closing the session with a Q&A with participants.

Special Guest: Jess T. Dugan

Jess T. Dugan (American, b. 1986) is an artist and writer whose work explores the complexities of personhood, relationships, desire, love, and family through photography, film, writing, and drawing. Their work is informed by their own life experiences, including their identity as a queer and nonbinary person, and reflects a deep belief in the importance of representation and the transformative power of storytelling.

Their work is regularly exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of over 70 museums. Their books include "Love Pictures", a survey book made in collaboration with Charlotte Cotton (Radius Books, 2026), "Look at me like you love me" (MACK, 2022), "To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults" (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and "Every Breath We Drew" (Daylight Books, 2015).

They are the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an ICP Infinity Award, and were selected by the Obama White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change.

They currently live and work in St. Louis, MO.

NO CLASS ON NOVEMBER 14

WEEK 6: Saturday, November 21, from 11 am to 2 pm (ET)

During the last session, Kelli opens with a presentation drawing on the work of artists who utilize archives and/or work with collage. Artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Michelle Dizon and Viet Le, Amy Elkins, Andres Gonzalez, Justine Kurland, Birthe Piontek, Alice Proujansky, and Jason Reblando will be discussed.

In the second part of the session, Kelli and Lesley A. Martin join in conversation about the production of "Pictures for Charis". Lesley will also discuss image and text-based works and the process of collaborating with writers, designers, and publishers in the bookmaking industry, followed by Q&A with participants.

Special Guest: Lesley A. Martin

Lesley A. Martin is executive director of Printed Matter. Formerly, she was the creative director of Aperture and founding publisher of The PhotoBook Review. She has edited more than 150 photography books, including An-My Lê’s "Small Wars"; "Illuminance" by Rinko Kawauchi; LaToya Ruby Frazier: "The Notion of Family;" Zanele Muholi: "Somnyama Ngonyama;" Pao Houa Her’s "My Grandfather Turned into a Tiger…;" Kelli Connell: "Pictures for Charis;" and "I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers, from the 1950s to Now," co-edited with Pauline Vermare. She received the Royal Photographic Society Award for Outstanding Achievement in Photographic Publishing in 2020 and served as visiting critic at the Yale University Graduate School of Art from 2016–2025.

* This schedule is subject to change at any time. If a Special Guest must cancel unexpectedly, we will confirm participation of another industry expert with a similar level of expertise to join us. Kelli Connell and Special Guests have the right to update, alter, and/or include topics that may benefit participants based on recent research or relevant industry changes.

Lectures will be conducted via Zoom.
All sessions will be recorded and available for unlimited access to registered participants through May 21, 2027.
While we don't have a specific deadline to sign up for this Lecture Series, we encourage you to sign up for this class by September 25, 2026, to allow for time to to receive instructions on preparing for these online sessions.

Cost: $675 USD

To pay in 2 monthly installments

Please note that the option to register and pay in installments will be available until Sept 4

Terms and Conditions

Please read our Terms, Conditions and Cancellation Policies here. If you have any questions about this Educational Series, please reach out to: selma@laluzworkshops.com.

Scholarship

We are offering five full scholarships for this Lecture Series. More details soon.