///NORA HERTING : PHOTOGRAPHY
Location: Brooklyn, NY
"Like most everyone, my relationship with photography began as a subject, nearly immediately after birth. I am interested the long-standing relationship people have with the camera and their image and the social and aesthetic structures that create it. I have investigated the cliché’s and myths people assume for the camera when their picture is taken.
For a decade I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with photography that has included affairs with installation and performance. I am interested in the way people mythologize themselves for the camera. In the process I have hovered with a giant camera over people’s beds, cooed at shriveled infants during a reconnaissance mission as a JcPenney portrait photographer, marveled at the flexibility of 5-year Midwestern cheerleaders, and hauled a portrait studio in a grocery cart to Brooklyn parks to find and immortalize 300 residents for the Brooklyn Historical Society’s permanent collection. I earned MFA from Ohio State University and have lived in Brooklyn since 2006."
When asked about her residency experience, Nora wrote:
"Working through McColl on my outreach afforded me the access and the support to delve into with collaboration, something I had long wanted to do, but was reticent about making the leap. With the Center's support I worked with two classes of 5th grade students from University Park Elementary . After we spent time looking at a history of portrait photography and discussing their own experiences, I erected a portrait studio and the children orchestrated their own portraits. This project continued to shape my work, as I have made a series of images from this particular collaboration and have gone on to repeat the project with children in other cities. The outreach was formative in moving my work into the realm of community interaction and social portraiture. I am grateful to Devlin and Claudia, both who put their confidence in my project and whose coordination helped make it a success."
nora@noraherting.com
Artist-in-Residence Winter 2007
January 8 - March 26, 2007
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