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Revival
A Photobook Case Study

Online Talk with Nydia Blas and Kris Graves

Thursday, November 18, 2021, 7PM EST

Free and open to the public

Registration required

Join Aurora for an online discussion about the making of Revival, by Nydia Blas, published 2021 by Kris Graves Projects | Monolith. From creative choices to economic necessities and pandemic delays, Blas and Graves will talk about all stages of the project’s development starting with initial idea to final publication.

To order Revival, please click here.

Revival, designed by Caleb Cain Marcus, intertwines this gorgeous selection of Nydia’s images with printed gold pages, all enclosed in a luminous softcover. The design of the book accentuates the metaphorical reference of the color gold found in the artist’s photographs: the warmth and power referenced by gold define the allegorical scenes created by Nydia and her models. These are spaces free from outside, imposed vision, where form, meaning, and identity are freshly represented through gesture, gaze, performance, costume, set construction and props, and above all, presence.

Kris Graves Projects | Monolith describes Nydia and her work:

Nydia Blas (nydiablas.com) is a visual artist who grew up in Ithaca, New York and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. She holds a B.S. from Ithaca College, and received her M.F.A. from Syracuse University in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Visual Culture at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She also works as a freelance photographer for clients such at The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker.

Nydia uses photography, collage, video, and books to address matters of sexuality, intimacy, and her lived experience as a girl, woman, and mother. She delicately weaves stories concerning circumstance, value, and power and uses her work to create a physical and allegorical space presented through a Black feminine lens. The result is an environment that is dependent upon the belief that in order to maintain resiliency, a magical outlook is necessary. In this space, props function as extensions of the body, costumes as markers of identity, and gestures/actions reveal the performance, celebration, discovery and confrontation involved in reclaiming one's body for their own exploration, discovery and understanding.

She has completed artist residencies at Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts and The Center for Photography at Woodstock. Her work has been featured in the book Mfon: A Journal of Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, The Huffington Post, Dazed and Confused Magazine, Strange Fire Collective, Refinery29, Hyperallergic, PDN, Fotografia Magazine, and more.

Image ©Nydia Blas