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Death and Photography

Posted by Todd Herman on 5/14/2005, 11:20 pm

Hello all,
I am a photographer, filmmaker and educator based in San Francisco CA. For the past ten years I�ve worked primarily with people with disabilities facilitating their video�s, animation and other visual artwork. Just to let you know that I have curated an exhibit called "In Passing: A Show about Death" at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. The exhibit was inspired by my father�s death two years ago. The exhibit features works by over 30 professional artists as well as by people who in no way identify with the role of artist or photographer. There is also a book that we have recently released entitled "In Passing: A Book about Death." Much of the photography in the book and show were produced by people primarily as a way to work through their grief. Both the book and show are simply to encourage anyone who has incurred a loss to take whatever time they need to grieve and to grow from that experience.
You can learn more about the book at www.thedancingtree.org/inpassingbook.html
You can learn more about the exhibit at www.thedancingtree.org/inpassingmedia.html
Please feel free to contact me for more details.
Sincerely,
Todd Herman
toddherman@mindspring.com

Re: Death and Photography

Posted by Ulla Halkola on 6/2/2005, 5:13 am, in reply to "Death and Photography"
130.232.49.147

Hello Todd,
Thank you very much for your text. It was intresting to read about your project "A Show about Death" and also about other things within the Dancing Tree. Great work indeed!
I�m a finnish psychotherapist and photogapher. I have done a book with traumatherapist Soili Poijula.The book named Grief - a Journey in your Heart (free translation from finnish to english)is to be done for people who have lost important people in their life. Soili has written the text that tells about the emotions which are common and perhaps also supprising when you experience grief. I have photographed flowers which are symbolistic for different emotional situations. This book has been a good support for many people in grief.
The thema of grief is very important in therapy and it can be done with photos in many ways. Thank you very much for telling about your experiences.
Sincerely yours Ulla Halkola

Re: Death and Photography

Posted by Judy Weiser, Administrator on 6/15/2005, 1:20 pm, in reply to "Death and Photography"

Hi Todd,
I know that we've already had some correspondence, including the comments below, but I just realized it might be benficial to other readers of this Group page, if I also added that information here too...
I just wanted to add that, along the same theme as the exhibition and book publication you announced (and by the way I did very much like your book!), that people interested in this topic of "photography and death" might also be interested in the 1995 Exhibition (& accompanying book) by Val Williams (in England), called "The Dead" (Bradford Museum exhibition publication)...
It seems to be very similar to what you've done (this happens all the time; synchronicity is amazing sometimes) and so I thought I shold let other people know about this other book too (which I also have):
Williams, V. (1995).�The dead. Bradford: National Museum of Photography, Film, & Television.
Please keep me posted about where you are exhibiting this show and also post a message here on this page whenever you have exhibitions happening, as others might want to come too!
thanks,
Judy

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