Our Photographs, Our Selves w/ Justine Kurland & Mayita Mendez

OCTOBER 9-11, 2026

WHERE: Private Residence in Kingston, NY

MAXIMUM CAPACITY: 14

TUITION: $1,600 

HOW TO APPLY: Anyone interested in joining can apply by submitting 10 images and answering a brief question. If you don't use gmail, please use this form instead to apply and email images directly to education@cpw.org. All submissions will be reviewed in July and will receive a response by August 1, 2026. If invited to participate, the tuition fee for the workshop is $1600 and includes all three in-person days, the Zoom session and light snacks.

JUSTINE KURLAND and MAYITA MENDEZ will lead this three-day workshop where artists will collectively photograph one another in outdoor spaces, putting theory into practice and demonstrating photography’s inherent collaborative, relational, and performative underpinnings. The concept is inspired by Ovular– feminist empowerment workshops held in the early 80’s where photography was used as a tool of self representation and self-possession. During this immersive sun up 'til sun down workshop, participants will be prompted to stage photographs and to be photographed while photographing. All individual work made during the workshop will belong to the collective as a whole.

Mayita Mendez, an artist who is also an energy worker, will guide participants in mindfulness exercises. This is a key component of the workshop aimed at helping us recalibrate our intentions towards a collective togetherness, drawing on the importance of the process and presence rather than the outcome.

The group will meet again at a later date via Zoom to share work and collectively make an edit to be exhibited in the Community Gallery at CPW in Spring of 2027.

WHAT TO BRING: Participants should bring their camera/s of choice– digital, film, polaroid, 4x5, medium format, 35mm, any camera will do! It is also highly encouraged for everyone to bring props –masks, costumes, make-up, and anything else that could be incorporated into collective picture-making.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS:
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.

MAYITA MENDEZ is a photographer, energy worker, and educator whose practice moves between image-making, healing, and presence. She received her MFA from RISD and was awarded a Presidential Scholarship. From staff photographer at New York Newsday to exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery, she has worked as an image-maker and visual artist throughout her career. Following her graduate work, she undertook over 20 years of practitioner training in energy work and healing modalities, a path that now runs alongside and through her photographic practice. She lives and works between New York, British Columbia, and El Salvador.