Aurora’s 2025 Residents will be selected by a panel comprised of Aurora PhotoCenter board members, Indianapolis art community members, and art advisors and professionals from outside Indiana.
Charles Guice is an art advisor, curator, mentor, and writer. An accomplished arts professional conversant in the diverse role of photography, he has been instrumental in advancing the careers of numerous leading contemporary visual artists, such as Erika Diettes, Hank Willis Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems. As a gallerist, Guice placed works in prominent private and public collections throughout the United States and abroad, including The Brooklyn Museum; The J. Paul Getty Museum; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A co-founder of Converging Perspectives (www.convergingperspectives.org), an online initiative promoting timely, critical, and in-depth discussion of contemporary photography from an international perspective, Guice has written articles and essays for publications such as B&W, Contact Sheet, and Nueva Luz, and on a number of artists. He has served on the Boards of Trustees for The California College of the Arts and The Museum of The African Diaspora, and was a founding member of the nominating committee for the Aperture West Book Prize. A former healthcare executive, Guice has curated exhibitions varying in scope, and he was a principal, managing director, and co-curator for Photo Miami.
Shana Lopes, PhD, is an Assistant Curator of Photography at SFMOMA. Born and raised in San Francisco, she has curated or co-curated exhibition such as: Constellations: Photographs in Dialogue, Sightlines: Photographs from the Collection, A Living for Us All: Artists and the WPA, Sea Change, Zanele Muholi: Eye Me, and the upcoming SECA 2024 Art Award. Over the past fourteen years, she has gained curatorial experience at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Justin A. Carney (jacarneyphoto.com) uses autobiographical photography to question how death and grief affect familial connections — the bonds that keep a family together and cause them to separate, and how those bonds shape an individual. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Carney was awarded first place in the Single Image category of LensCulture’s 2023 Art Photography Awards. He is a recipient of the Reva Shiner Memorial Award in the 2022 National Society of Arts and Letters Competition and Exhibition and the Best in Show Award in the 2020 Emerging Vision: Biennial Student Show at the Colorado Photographic Art Center. Carney’s work has been exhibited nationally and abroad, including in China, South Korea, London, and Spain. Carney received his MFA in Photography from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2023. He was an instructor at Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis and is currently Assistant Professor of Photography at Colorado State University.
Mary Goodwin (Aurora Founder, Secretary) has an MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where she also acquired a love of chilis, both red and green. Her writing about photography has appeared in photoeye booklist, f-stop magazine, and the Contact Sheet Annual. As the former Associate Director at Light Work in Syracuse, New York, she curated exhibitions by Deana Lawson, Yolanda del Amo, Demetrius Oliver, and Stephen Chalmers, among other artists. Mary loves to talk about photobooks, and she has led a series of book talks, with artists, publishers, and designers, for Aurora in addition to her curatorial and administrative duties.
For a decade, Benjamin Martinkus (benjaminmartinkus.com) has been a committed artist-educator, speaking about issues of representation and fostering critical discourse between student-artists and the communities they chose to serve. Benjamin currently teaches in the Photo & Intermedia Program at the Herron School of Art and Design. Born and raised in the Midwest, his work in photography, video, sculpture, and performance engages the charged poetics of contemporary viewership. Benjamin holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has exhibited his work throughout the United States. Benjamin loves old things, well-made food, and spending time with his wife and their four children.
Osamu James Nakagawa (jamesnakagawa.com) was born in New York City in 1962 and raised in Tokyo. He returned to the United States; moving to Houston, Texas, at the age of 15. He received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Houston in 1993. Currently, Mr. Nakagawa is the distinguished Professor and Ruth N. Halls Professor of Photography at Indiana University. Nakagawa is a recipient of the 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2010 Higashikawa New Photographer of the Year, and 2015 Sagamihara Photographer of the Year in Japan. Nakagawa’s work has been exhibited internationally, including From the Cave, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; 2019 Kyotographie, Eclipse＋ Kai: Osamu James Nakagawa, Gallery Sugata; Photography to End All Photography, Brandts Museum, Denmark; OKINAWA TRILOGY: Osamu James Nakagawa, Kyoto University of Art and Design; War/Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; After Photoshop: Manipulated Photography in the Digital Age, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and others. His work is included in numerous collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; George Eastman Museum; Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Sakima Art Museum, Okinawa; The Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and others. Nakagawa’s work appears in many international publications. Recently, his work was published in A World History of Photography, 5th edition, by Naomi Rosenblum, and A Shared Elegy: Emmet Gowin, Elijah Gowin, Takayuki Ogawa, Osamu James Nakagawa from Indiana University Press. Nakagawa’s monograph GAMA Caves is available from Akaaka Art Publisher in Tokyo, Japan.
Jacinda Russell (jacindarussell.com) is a conceptual artist working primarily in the mediums of photography, sculpture, installation, and bookmaking. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Texas Gallery, Houston Center for Photography, and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. She is the recipient of the DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award of the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the Photographic Arts Council / Los Angeles Research Fellowship at the Center for Creative Photography. Born in Idaho, she received her BFA from Boise State University in Studio Art and her MFA from the University of Arizona.
Chris Smith is a photographer and community leader committed to empowering others through art and inspiring them to share their unique perspectives with the world. His work focuses on capturing the ethereal beauty of nature, reflecting a deep appreciation for its tranquility and abundance. Through his art, Chris aims to connect with others, fostering creativity and growth within artistic communities. As the Executive Director of 1000 Words Gallery in Indianapolis, Indiana, Chris mentors emerging artists, equipping them with the resources and opportunities needed to thrive in the local arts economy. With a background in sales development and secondary education, he combines professional expertise with a passion for teaching to guide others in mastering their craft and building meaningful connections. Chris believes in art’s power to uplift, heal, and unite, and he is dedicated to creating experiences that inspire and strengthen communities.
Betsy Stirratt is Director Emeritus of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University Bloomington where, since 1987, she curated exhibitions including Personal: Selections from the Robert J. Shiffler Collection and more recently State of Nature: Picturing Indiana Biodiversity. She has edited several books and catalogues, including [Re]Imagining Science, Indiana University Press (2017), Framing Beauty: Intimate Visions, Grunwald Gallery, Indiana University (2017), Human Nature, School of Fine Arts Gallery, Indiana University (2007), Les Vérités du Sexe, Editions Marval, Paris, France (French, German editions, 2003) and Feminine Persuasion: Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN (2003). Exhibiting her own work widely since 1983, solo exhibitions include La Maladie at The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia and the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago and Veiled Taxonomies at the Center for Book Arts in New York among others. Her work has been included in group exhibits at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and White Columns and Art in General in New York. She is the recipient of several grants, including a Visual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and awards from the Indiana Arts Commission and the American Craft Council.