Following the artist talk at 2pm at the NSU Art Museum Fort Laduerdale, Girls’ Club presents the opening reception for ZOI: Stella Johnson, an exhibition of photographs by Stella Johnson from her latest project, ZOI.

Photography is about seeking out and being with people. These images reflect my experience of daily life in Greece and the religious and cultural rituals on the islands of Lesvos, birthplace of my maternal grandmother, and Crete where I am teaching photography.

After years of investigating by camera the back roads of Mexico, Nicaragua, and Cameroon, Stella Johnson arrived at her grandmother’s birthplace, an island in the north of Greece near Turkey.

I had accepted qualities of their village culture circa 1910 as the antidote I sought to my life in an urbanized North American town. Every year I traveled to remote locales that replicated my grandparents’ quality of life in the country of my family’s origin – tight-knit communities with no electricity or running water. I lived and recorded what happened in those remote villages: the negotiations and interactions of individuals surviving with little or no margin or resources.

ZOI will be on view January 16 – January 30, 2016, Wednesday – Friday, 1-5pm and by appointment.