These photographs are part documentation and part interpretation of a collaborative, after-school arts curriculum based on self-portraiture. The project took place in Manchester, Pittsburgh, PA., and engaged young students from the local public and charter school in the community for 13 years.

The complete body of work incorporates drawings, recycled photographs, sound, print media and body gesture while exploring dimensions of self and “other” including race, class and gender.

 

Bio:

Francis Crisafio was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. and studied painting and printmaking at Carnegie Mellon University. A self-taught photographer, Mr. Crisafio tends to work on long-term, narrative projects focusing on portraiture and identity. 

His work has been exhibited at the Photographic Resource Center, Boston; “The Fence,” Brooklyn and Boston; Filter Festival/Space, Chicago; Center for Photography, Greenville, SC; Los Angeles Center for Photography; PhotoNOLA, New Orleans and the Aperture Foundation Gallery and Soho Photo Gallery, both New York as well as other venues nationally and internationally. The work has been curated/juried by Elizabeth Avedon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Aline Smithson, Christopher Rauschenberg; Reto Thuring and Jose Diaz, amongst others.

Mr. Crisafio was a LensCulture Exposure Awards Finalist, 2015; a Semifinalist in The Print Center’s 87th, 90th and 93rd ANNUAL International Competition, 2013, 2015 and 2018; and a Fellow at the Silver Eye Center of Photography, Pittsburgh, 2017.

“These photographs are part documentation and part interpretation of a collaborative, after-school arts curriculum based on self-portraiture. The project took place in Manchester, Pittsburgh, PA., and engaged young students from the local public and charter school in the community for 13 years.

The complete body of work incorporates drawings, recycled photographs, sound, print media and body gesture while exploring dimensions of self and “other” including race, class and gender.”