Art and Activism: A Conversation with Photographer Jess T. Dugan and Curator Mary Statzer

The Department of Art and the History of Art and the Program in Film and Media Studies presents a conversation between artist Jess Dugan and curator Mary Statzer.

Jess T. Dugan is an artist whose work explores issues of identity through photographic portraiture. Dugan’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of over 35 museums throughout the United States. Dugan’s monographs include 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 and an ICP Infinity Award, and were selected by the Obama White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change. They are represented by the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago.

Mary Statzer is the curator of prints and photographs at University of New Mexico Art Museum (UNMAM), where she oversees a collection of more than 10,000 photographs. Statzer brought the exhibition To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults to UNMAM, and organized Patrick Nagatani: A Survey of Early Photographs and Indelible Ink: Native Women, Printmaking, Collaboration. In 2019, she and her colleagues launched UNMAM’s Acquisitions Fund for Diversity and Equity. Statzer holds an M.F.A. in printmaking from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in the history and theory of art from University of Arizona. She has published articles in Aperture magazine and edited a multi-author book titled The Photographic Object 1970, released in 2016. She has participated in photography portfolio reviews across the United States.