Nelson Chan - Episode 103

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha is joined by photographer, publisher, editor, and educator Nelson Chan. Together, they trace the winding path that led Nelson to his dream job as a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Along the way, Nelson reflects on the “guardian angels” who helped him stay the course, the openness that allowed unexpected opportunities to shape his trajectory, and the community of friends and collaborators who eventually inspired the founding of TIS Books. Sasha and Nelson also talk about the value of building connections, putting yourself out there, and treating your career as a marathon rather than a sprint. https://www.nelsonchanphotography.com/ https://www.tisbooks.pub/ Nelson Chan was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan and has spent most of his life between the States and Hong Kong. Having grown up between two continents, this immigrant experience influences the majority of his work. Nelson received his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Hartford Art School, respectively. He has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; and 798 Space, Beijing, China. His books are collected in the institutional libraries of The MET, The Guggenheim, SEMOMA, The Whitney Museum, The Harry Ransom Center, and MoMA, among others. Along with his own photographic work, book publishing and education are extensions of, what Nelson refers to as, an industrious studio practice. He is co-founder of TIS books, an independent art book publisher and was production manager at the Aperture Foundation from 2016-19. In 2025, Nelson was awarded tenure at California College of the Arts but ultimately left the Bay Area to teach at the Rhode Island School of Design as an associate professor of photography.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, artist, photographer, and filmmaker Tyler Mitchell joins Sasha to discuss his Aperture book, Wish This Was Real. Tyler speaks candidly about learning by doing, the value of taking risks, and the creative rewards that follow. He and Sasha also explore the central role of collaboration in his practice, particularly how that ethos shapes his approach to building tableaux. https://www.tylermitchell.co https://www.tylermitchell.co/books/wish-this-was-real-book Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995, Atlanta, GA) is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He received a BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2017. Mitchell’s work reimagines narratives of Black beauty and desire, embracing history while envisioning fictionalized moments of an aspirational future. His photographs and films present Black life through themes of play, empowerment, and self-determination. Mitchell’s work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, among others. He has presented exhibitions internationally, including The New Black Vanguard (Aperture Gallery, New York); I Can Make You Feel Good (FOAM, Amsterdam; ICP, New York); Chrysalis (Gagosian, London); Domestic Imaginaries (SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah); and Idyllic Space (High Museum of Art, Atlanta). His European touring exhibition, Wish This Was Real (C/O Berlin, 2024), brought together a decade of work exploring Black beauty, leisure, and imagination, traveling to Helsinki, Lausanne, and concluding at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2025–26). Mitchell’s photography has appeared in Aperture, Dazed, i-D, Vogue, Vanity Fair, WSJ, and Zeit Magazin, alongside collaborations with Gucci, Loewe, Ferragamo, and JW Anderson.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, April Watson, Senior Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, joins Sasha to discuss her upcoming exhibition, American Prospects and Landscape Photography, 1839 to Today. The two dive into an insider’s conversation about how acquisitions—whether through donations or direct purchases—shape curatorial decisions. April speaks about the importance of honoring donor gifts through thoughtful exhibitions, and about working closely with museum education staff to shape exhibition language to engage audiences who may not have an art-historical background. She then turns the tables, inviting Sasha to share her perspective on the current state of the photographic art market and how it has evolved or devolved over time. https://nelson-atkins.org/art/exhibitions/american-prospects-and-landscape-photography-1839-to-today/ https://www.instagram.com/nama_photographs/ April M. Watson is Senior Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. During her eighteen-year tenure at the museum, Watson has curated over 20 exhibitions that span the history of photography. These include: American Prospects and Landscape Photography, 1839 to the Present (forthcoming 2026); Strange and Familiar Places (2025); Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City (2023, with the High Museum of Art); Jim Dow: Signs (2022); Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali: The Image of a Champion, 1966/1970 (2020, with the Gordon Parks Foundation); Eugene Richards: The Run-On of Time (2018, with the George Eastman Museum); Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet (2013); and Heartland: The Photographs of Terry Evans (2012). Prior to the Nelson-Atkins, Watson held curatorial research positions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. She holds an MA in Art History from the University of New Mexico and a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Kansas. She is currently at work on a major exhibition for 2027 that explores the relationship between early photography the antislavery movement. The exhibition will also feature major contemporary works inspired by this history.

In this 100th episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and Michael celebrate with some of their favorite clips from the past 5 years. They also play some wonderful tributes from listeners and guests who submitted recordings to help celebrate this milestone for the show. Listed below are the inspiring clips from Sasha’s conversations with our amazing guests. Thank you to our listeners who wrote or sent in recordings and to all our listeners who have supported the show, and thank you to our guests who were so generous with their time and their stories. Community: 11:20 Curran Hatleberg 16:27 Gillian Laub 19:06 Carolyn Drake Origins: 23:20 Keisha Scarville 31:37 Rahim Fortune 38:01 Shirin Neshat Editing: 45:36 Gregory Halpern 52:05 Todd Hido 56:02 Ron Jude https://photowork.foundation The PhotoWork Foundation supports the development and education of post-documentary photographic artists and cultivates an audience for their work. Through a diverse program of outreach to individual artists and those who will be enriched by the results of their sustained efforts, the Foundation seeks to empower an aspect of photography that is often not commercially viable but is essential to the collective understanding of what it looks like to be living in society today. The PhotoWork Foundation believes that providing education, guidance, mentorship, and resources to early and mid-career photographers builds a connected community of artists that will collectively make important contributions to a common humanist perspective on our shared culture.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, photographer Mike Brodie talks about his raw, intimate and powerful new book, Failing (Twin Palms). Growing up with a tough home life, Brodie found escape in the punk and BMX scenes before, at just 17, he began hopping freight trains and photographing the drifters and outcasts he met on the rails. Those images became A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2013), a groundbreaking book that launched his career. After that early success, Brodie walked away from the art world to become a diesel mechanic. Now, age 40, with a son, he reunites with longtime collaborator Paul Schiek ( TBW Books) to publish Failing and reflects with Sasha on his journey, the challenges of early fame, and what it means to return to photography on his own terms. https://www.instagram.com/mikebrodie_thepolaroidkidd https://www.twinpalms.com/products/mike-brodie-failing Mike Brodie’s first monograph, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity touched down more than a decade ago, depicting his fellow rail-riders and drifters in a rebellious and wildfire pursuit of adventure and freedom. “Brodie leapt into the life of picture-making as if he was the first to do it,” Danny Lyon wrote about the book in Aperture. Next came Tones of Dirt and Bone, a collection of earlier SX-70 pictures Brodie made when photography first led him to hopping freights, when he was known as “The Polaroid Kidd.” And then Brodie seemed to disappear from the art world as suddenly and mysteriously as he’d first appeared. Maybe his vanishing was another myth. Maybe it was just a necessary retreat. “I was divorcing myself from all that,” he says. “I was growing up. I was pursuing this other life.” In Nashville he became a diesel mechanic. Fell in love. Moved across the country again. Got married. Bought land on the long dusty Winnemucca road Johnny Cash sang about. Started his own business. Built a house. Put down roots. And when that life exploded, the open road called again. Throughout almost all of it, his cameras were with him, and at last those pictures are coming to light.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha is joined by legendary photo critic, curator, and collector Vince Aletti. Vince reflects on his early days as a music critic for Rolling Stone before joining the Village Voice as an arts editor, where he also began writing about photography. Later, as the photography critic at The New Yorker, Vince became a deeply admired voice in the field. Photographers hoped he would write about their work because his reviews were always perceptive, beautifully written, and profoundly generous of spirit. Sasha and Vince also revisit a personal milestone: Vince was the first critic to review an exhibition at Sasha’s gallery, featuring photographs by the late Paul McDonough—a review that helped launch both Paul’s career and Sasha’s as a gallerist. In addition, they explore Vince’s unparalleled collection of photo ephemera, a lifelong passion that has not only preserved vital archives of lesser-known work but has also inspired acclaimed photobooks and exhibitions. https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/vince-aletti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Aletti Vince Aletti is a writer and curator based in New York City. His writings on music and photography have been published widely. Between 1973 and 1978 Aletti wrote a highly prescient weekly column on the emerging disco scene for Record World magazine, and between 1987 and 2005 he was the art editor and photography critic for The Village Voice. His writings have also appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, and Vogue Italia, among many other publications. His book Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines was published by Phaidon in 2019. The Drawer was published by Self Publish, Be Happy in September 2022 and went on to win the 2023 Aperture/Paris Photo Photobook of the Year award.  An exhibition at White Columns inspired by The Drawer in 2024 was Aletti's fifth collaboration with the gallery, following on from his 2008 exhibition Male: Work from the Collection of Vince Aletti; the 2014 exhibition of Robert Kitchen’s work, and the 2019 exhibition of Ed Baynard’s work (both curated by Aletti); and the 2008 White Columns publication of Aletti’s collected writings on disco, Disco File, which was subsequently republished in an expanded edition by DJ History/D.A.P. Born 1945, Philadelphia  Rolling Stone contributor (1970–1989); first mainstream writer on disco (1973)  Record World weekly disco columnist (1974–1979) Senior Editor,  Photo Critic & Art Editor, The Village Voice (~1987–2005) Contributor, The New Yorker (2005–2016): weekly exhibition reviews in Goings on About Town Various publications: Artforum, Aperture, Photograph, Vogue Italia, FOAM, System

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, photographer Daniel Arnold joined Sasha for a candid conversation about the upsides and downsides of social media success. Daniel reflected on the joy and fulfillment he experienced during the height of his online popularity, while also acknowledging the need to move beyond curating a public persona. They also discussed his forthcoming book, You Are What You Do (Loose Joints). Though Daniel had a strong instinct to maintain control over his work, he came to appreciate how working with an editor—bringing in a more objective eye—could open the work up to new ideas and take it in directions he might not have pursued on his own. Special Request: As we approach our 100th episode, we're both thrilled to reach this milestone and deeply grateful to our extraordinary guests and YOU, our dedicated listeners. In the coming months, we'll be sharing reflections on how the podcast has evolved over the past five years and highlighting memorable past episodes. Most importantly, we want to hear from you! We'd love for you to share what the PhotoWork Podcast means to you: What has the PhotoWork podcast meant to you? How has it influenced your relationship with photography? Which episode resonated with you most? What's the most valuable lesson you've learned? Send your audio messages (1 minute max) or written thoughts to [email protected] with the subject line "Episode 100" Please include your first name and location in both audio and written messages! Selected submissions will be featured in our special 100th episode, and EVERYONE who participates will be entered to win exclusive PhotoWork appreciation gifts. https://danielarnold.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arnold_daniel/ https://loosejoints.biz/collections/forthcoming/products/you-are-what-you-do Daniel Arnold (b. 1980, USA) is a New York-based photographer whose candid, street-level images capture the unfiltered rhythms of urban life. His recent solo exhibitions include Dante’s Inverno at The Little House, Los Angeles, New York Life at New York Life Gallery, New York and Nothing at Larrie Gallery, New York. Arnold's photography appears regularly in publications including The New York Times, Vogue, and Interview, among others. In 2022, Elara Press published his first monograph entitled Pickpocket. A new collection of photos entitled You Are What You Do will be released in November of 2025 by Loose Joints.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, photographer and educator Sage Sohier joins Sasha to discuss a lifetime of extraordinary work, including her recently published books Passing Time and Americans Seen (Nazraeli Press), featuring photographs made primarily in the 1980s. They also delve into Witness to Beauty (Kehrer Verlag), an intimate and moving portrait of Sohier’s mother alongside her two daughters—a project that embraces aging and the passage of time. Throughout the conversation, Sage shares her enthusiasm and thoughtful insights on staying open to new ideas and equipment, as well as the value of revisiting older work with fresh eyes. https://sagesohier.com https://www.instagram.com/sagesohier/ Sage Sohier (b. 1954, Washington, D.C.) grew up in Virginia and received her BA from Harvard University in 1975. She is a Boston-based photographer who has published eight monographs, including “Americans Seen,” (Nazraeli Press 2017 and 2024), “Passing Time,” (2023), and “Witness to Beauty” (Kehrer 2017). She is the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Sohier’s work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the International Center of Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in solo shows at Joseph Bellows Gallery, Robert Klein Gallery, Foley Gallery, Blue Sky Gallery, and The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. Her work is in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She has taught photography at Harvard University and Wellesley College, and has done commissioned work for the George Gund Foundation in Cleveland, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency program in Captiva, FL, as well as editorial work for numerous publications

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, renowned photographer Dana Lixenberg discusses the power of portraiture and how editorial autonomy enabled her to safeguard the portrayal of individuals featured in her work within marginalized communities. Lixenberg shares the origins of Imperial Courts, her seminal project documenting life in the Los Angeles housing project of the same name, and the deep relationship of trust she built over more than two decades of work there. The conversation also explores her iconic portraits of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, as well as her poignant book project, The Last Days of Shishmaref, which captures the lives of an Indigenous community on a disappearing Alaskan island. https://grimmgallery.com/artists/42-dana-lixenberg/ https://www.instagram.com/danalixenberg Dana Lixenberg is known for her stripped-down portraits that revel in the elemental characteristics of her subjects. She uses a large-format field camera – a cumbersome tool, which necessitates what the artist refers to as a ‘slow dance’ between her and her subjects. The resulting portraits contain an enormous amount of detail and texture, and are as revelatory as a personal encounter. The power of the work arises from its intimacy, compositional rigor and, importantly, the absence of social stereotyping. Lixenberg has been predominantly active in the United States, and her thorough understanding of the country and its society seeps through palpably in her work.  Besides her extensive editorial practice, for which she photographed many cultural icons, she pursues long-term projects with a primary focus on marginalized communities. These projects include Jeffersonville, Indiana (2005), a collection of landscapes and portraits of a small town’s homeless population and The Last Days of Shishmaref (2008), which portrays an Inupiaq community on an eroding island off the coast of Alaska. Lixenberg’s most extensive body of work to date is Imperial Courts, 1993-2015 (2015), which she begun in the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King riots. Spanning 22 years, the project tracks the changing shape of an underserved community in Watts, Los Angeles. In contrast to the often one dimensional, sensationalized media coverage of this neighborhood, Lixenberg employs a more subdued and collaborative photographic approach. Like her other projects, Imperial Courts consists of a series of photographs and a publication. Exploring other media for the first time, Lixenberg also included audio recordings and created a three-channel video installation. The project was awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2017 and continues to be exhibited internationally.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha welcomes two extraordinary guests: artist and curator Justine Kurland and Marina Chao, a curator at CPW. Together, they discuss their collaboration on The Rose, an exhibition that explores collage as a feminist form, strategy, and genealogy. Featuring works by over fifty contemporary artists and key figures from the 1960s and 1970s, the exhibition examines collage as both a means of world-building and a survival strategy in times of crisis. Sasha, Justine, and Marina delve into the layered responsibilities of artists and discuss the assumption that interpreting a straightforward photograph is inherently simpler than reading and interpreting conceptual art. https://www.justinekurland.com https://cpw.org/staff/ https://cpw.org/exhibition/the-rose/ Justine Kurland is an artist known for her utopian photographs of American landscapes and the fringe communities, both real and imagined, that inhabit them. Her early work comprises photographs, taken during many cross-country road trips, that counter the masculinist mythology of the American landscape, offering a radical female imaginary in its place. Her recent series of collages, SCUMB Manifesto, continues to make space for women by transforming books by canonized male photographers through destruction and reparation. Kurland’s work has been exhibited at museums and galleries in the United States and abroad. Her work is included in permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Museum, Pennsylvania; Getty Museum, California; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, among others. She works with Higher Pictures in New York. Marina Chao has previously held curatorial positions at the International Center of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As assistant curator at ICP she organized the exhibition Multiply, Identify, Her (2018) and contributed to the publication Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self (Aperture and ICP, 2018). She was awarded a 2019 Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for Seeing Meaning, a project exploring the intersections of image, language, and technology.