APEIRON WORKSHOPS REUNION

SILVER MOUNTAIN MEMORIES

        EVENT DETAILS Location Schedule Highlights Updates Cost

The reunion schedule is a mix of open time, informal gatherings, and some sit-down

presentations. But in all of those modes, it is intended to be primarily an opportunity

for finding, at our own pace, ways to reconnect to each other. There will be many

hundreds of acres of beautiful landscape to wander in... and though there will be lots

happening, there will be no attendance police! Here’s some details of events on tap,

with invitations to participate in creating many of them:

Re-re-re, Remember When:

A call for images for our Friday night electronic slide show...

The reunion will begin with a relaxed evening of refreshments (BYOB) and socializing for

those able to arrive Friday. As a background entertainment (literally), we will be running a

large-screen loop (yes, a very long loop) of projected images of life at Apeiron, made by

those who were there. These can and should include the entire range of creative, social

and physical activities of and at Apeiron, including but not limed to: field trips, critiques,

meals, dorm life, the garden, exhibition projects, swimming hole excursions, construction

projects, and of course the dogs. Please submit them in digitized form by August 23rd., in

the .jpg format, and with a maximum file size of 2 megabytes each. (The image loop will be

available for viewing later in the weekend as well for those arriving after the Friday evening

session.) Those not able to attend the reunion in person are invited to participate in

this project too! “This submissions process in now complete, and the slide show is being

prepared”.

Photography In Our Lives:

A description of the proposed Saturday afternoon gathering...

This is envisioned as an opportunity, in a round-table discussion facilitated by Elaine

Mayes, to share and reflect on how and why a passion for photography first entered our

lives, and how it subsequently stayed with us, or evolved into something related, or

perhaps abandoned us. Like divine grace or lady luck, the presence of the Muse can

always be invited or invoked, but never demanded. Has it been faithful or fickle with you?

And how have you been with it? This is a time and space dedicated to informal dialogue

about our own and each other’s creativity across the four decades since Apeiron.

It’s Your Show:

A call for mini-presentations by attendees...

Included in this category are a number of time slots reserved for show-and-tell

presentations by those attending the conference. The topics can be creative, academic,

personal, or outright vaudevillian. For the extroverts among us (or those willing to overcome

their introversion) these are simply opportunities to show and/or tell us something

interesting, entertaining or moving about your work, your world, or your life. Proposed

presentations can be 20, 30, or 60 minutes long. This submissions process is now

complete; see SCHEDULE for presenters.

Our “Night Out in Asheville”

If this doesn’t sound like fun, check yourself for a pulse.

On the Saturday night of the conference, we will all skip the Montreat dinner fare and

decamp for Asheville, where a myriad of dining opportunities beckon. After dinner, we will

re-assemble (at a site in walking distance from most Asheville eateries) for the Reunion-

sponsored public panel discussion described below. And after that, we will all migrate to

Benjamin Porter’s house for a private after-panel party (BYOB but soft drinks/refreshments

will be provided). For simplicity (and to avoid various liabilities) we will have a bus

available to take us from Montreat to downtown, from downtown to Ben’s house, and from

the party back to Montreat.

Public Panel Presentation: “Photography Then and Now”

A discussion of the arc of creative photography over the 40 years since Apeiron opened...

Panel members will include:

A.D. Coleman, photography critic, historian, curator, poet, teacher, lecturer, editor, and

publisher. Recipient of numerous international awards for his writings on photography,

nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his poetry, Alan Coleman has established a

substantial presence on the World Wide Web since his home page made its debut

in the spring of 1995. His current projects include Photocritic International, The

Photography Criticism CyberArchive, and the electronic magazine The Nearby Café,

all of which can be accessed via adcoleman.com. Alan was a frequent guest

critic at Apeiron during his tenure as The New York Times’ first photography critic.

Elaine Mayes, prolific Guggenheim-winning photographer and filmmaker, and

the first woman to teach both photography and film in an academic curriculum at the

college level. Elaine’s teaching posts have included Hampshire College (a founding

member of the department), Pratt Institute, Bard College and New York University, from

which she retired as Chair of the Photography department at the Tisch School of the

Arts in 2000. Elaine was a frequent winter guest artist and summer workshop

leader at Apeiron, her work was included in The First Apeiron Portfolio, and she was

one of the 12 imagemakers who did commissioned work for Apeiron’s NEA-funded

photographic survey, The Long Island Project.

John Rohrbach, Senior Curator of Photographs at the Amon Carter Museum in

Fort Worth, Texas. As a curator at the museum (where he has worked since 1992) he

has assembled exhibitions on the works of Frank Gohlke, Elliot Porter, Richard

Avedon, and Robert Adams, among others.  In addition he has done extensive

research and writing about Paul Strand, reflecting the fact that earlier in his career

he was Director of the Paul Strand Archive for the Aperture Foundation. Before

that, he was an Apeiron Staff member and the manager of Apeiron’s Photographic

Archives and Exhibitions Program. His Ph.D. Dissertation was "Art for Society's

Sake: Paul Strand's Photographic Visions".

My Apeiron

A place for sharing reflections on the immediate and long-term effects of your time on Silver

Mountain...

Decades after his 1971 workshop experience, Arno Minkinnen said in an interview: "We all

have our own Apeiron to call home, where for the first time we discover how to make the

risk visible..." Like Arno, a number of people who passed though Apeiron have in recent

years spoken or written something about it and what it did for, or meant to, them.

In the months since this reunion process has gotten rolling, many more have spoken or

written about their time at Apeiron. At the reunion there will be opportunities, for attendees

who wish to, to put some of that on video – but the response-gathering process will

continue post reunion as well, and include all who could not come to Asheville.

What was the essence of your experience of Apeiron? What effect, if any, did it have on

your subsequent practice of photography, or art, or on your life in general? We’re looking

for anything from a few sentences to a few pages, with or without any images you think are

relevant...

All of you who attended Apeiron will be receiving a personal post-reunion request to add

your thoughts and images to the mix, as we explore how to best share those responses

with each other -- and a wider audience -- either via a more comprehensive Apeiron

Workshops website, or as an on-demand publication, or both.