2026 Medium Festival of Photography Speaker Schedule
Access to all Medium Festival of Photography Artist Talks & Featured Speakers is included with Full Frame and Platinum Print festival passes.
MARCH 28TH 2026 FESTIVAL SPEAKER LINE UP:
1:00PM—Stephan Jahanshahi
1:30PM—Rachel Kowalski
2:00PM—Ingrid Hernández (with Liliana Hueso)
2:30PM—Carmen Cuenca & Michael Krichman from inSITE
3:00PM—Oriana Poindexter
3:30PM—Alessandra Moctezuma and Patricio Chavez
4:00PM—Featured Speaker: Leah Ollman
1:00PM—Stephan Jahanshahi
Nations and Games
Iranian-American artist Stephan Reza Jahanshahi-Ghajar presents a series of photographic works utilizing still life, portraiture, archival images and poetic texts to explore the diasporic experience of Iranians living in the US. Turning to art as a space that refuses to flatten in the wake of ongoing political tumult, Jahanshahi’s projects offer perspectives on the experiences of Iranians holding their breath, balancing their histories and identities, while navigating America’s dreams and realities.
Artist Bio
Stephan Reza Jahanshahi-Ghajar is an Iranian-American photographer based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the MFA Photo, Video and Related Media program at SVA, he uses photography to examine how community, environment and narrative shape experience and identity. Stephan’s practice has explored the poetics of climate change above the Arctic circle, the bonding experience of sport as a means of transcending divisions of race, class and orientation in North America, and the multiplicities of the Iranian diaspora.
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1:30PM—Rachel Kowalski
Shoot Smart: The Legal Essentials Every Photographer Needs to Know
Shoot Smart: The Legal Essentials Every Photographer Needs to Know is a fast, practical guide to protecting your images and your creative livelihood. In 20 minutes, we’ll cover core copyright and licensing concepts, common real-world pitfalls, and how to think about image use in today’s publishing and online environment. You’ll leave with a simple checklist for setting expectations, avoiding misunderstandings, and responding when your photos are shared or used without permission. Presented as general educational information, not legal advice.
Bio
For over two decades, Rachel has helped high-profile creative professionals — artists, photographers, speakers, writers, and beyond — protect their work, collaborate with confidence, and grow their businesses. Think of her as your legal GPS: navigating trademarks, contracts, copyrights, and all those 'wait, do I need a lawyer for this?' moments — without the jargon.
2:00PM—Ingrid Hernández (with Liliana Hueso)
A Type of "Under Construction" That Becomes Permanent Over Time
In this talk, artist Ingrid Hernández will present Sedimentaciones, a project that emerges from more than two decades of research in neighborhoods and informal settlements in Tijuana. Through photography, her work explores how reused materials and self-construction practices shape the city’s urban landscape. The notion of “sedimentation” operates as a metaphor for understanding the accumulation of material, social, and affective layers that form these everyday architectures. Through images and reflections on her process, the artist proposes a reading of Tijuana as a territory in a permanent state of under construction.
Artist Bio
Ingrid Hernández, from Tijuana, Mexico, explores how cities change by looking at how people relate to their homes. With a background in both sociology and visual art, she focuses on communities built by migrants, deportees, and people who’ve been displaced, especially near the US-Mexico border. She often uses discarded materials from the U.S. and local Mexican maquiladoras in her work. Her projects usually involve long-term collaborations, including interviews, photography, and exploring shared memories. Recent awards and grants include the National System of Art Creators Grant (2022-2025), Acquisition prize. XIII Baja California Photography Biennial (2024), EFIARTES, Support for Investment Projects in Artistic Production (2024), among others. Her work has been exhibited in museums in Latin America, the US, and Europe; as well as being featured in The Matter of Photography: Experiments in Latin American Art Since the 60s, published by Stanford University Press. Irregular, a monograph of her work, was published by the Mexican Council of Arts and Culture. Hernández is co-founder of Relaciones Inesperadas, a teaching space for the development of contemporary artistic practices and the fostering of critical dialogue in the arts established in Tijuana.
2:30PM—Carmen Cuenca & Michael Krichman from inSITE
Wandering Position: Platforms for Commissioning New Work in the Transnational Region (1994-2026)
With an emphasis on works currently showcased in the Erratic Fields exhibition on view at Bread & Salt, Wandering Position explores INSITE’s practice of commissioning artists to develop new projects in Baja California and San Diego County over the past three decades. Among other projects, the presentation will highlight long-term commissions with photographers Johnnie Chatman and Allan Sekula.
Carmen Cuenca is Co-Executive Director of INSITE. Since 1993 she has played a central role in INSITE, overseeing the production and permitting of artist projects, cultivating binational institutional collaborations, and directing administration and fundraising. Cuenca previously served as Director of the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City (2011–2014); Subdirector for Visual Arts at Centro Cultural Tijuana (2006–2009), where she oversaw the construction of El Cubo, the city’s first traditional museum space; and Executive Director of the Mexican Cultural Institute at the Mexican Consulate in San Diego. She studied Art History at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.
Michael Krichman is Co-Executive Director of INSITE and a collector and arts advocate. Previously President of the INSITE Board of Directors, he has led the organization since 1995, facilitating the production of more than 200 site-specific and public-domain works through INSITE’s residency program along the San Diego–Tijuana border. In addition, Krichman has advised numerous urban and public art initiatives and served on the boards of institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the San Diego Children’s Museum, and the Orange County Museum of Art.
3:00PM—Oriana Poindexter
The Blue Forest
Oriana Poindexter will discuss her practice at the intersection of photographic printmaking and marine science, exploring how freediving, alternative processes and scientific specimen collections combined to lead her to the large-scale cyanotype installation work of her current Blue Forest series. She shares how the physical, tactile nature of photographic printmaking became the bridge between her scientific and artistic lives, and how that bridge has shaped a practice in which the ocean is as much collaborator as subject.
Artist Bio
Oriana Poindexter is an American-Italian artist and marine scientist with an academic background spanning photography, fisheries, and marine conservation. She dives, photographs, and collects specimens to create photo-based works that document the ocean’s shifting ecosystems.
Poindexter has earned an M.A.S. in Marine Biodiversity & Conservation from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and a B.A. in Visual Arts from Princeton University. Her work has been exhibited at Oceanside Museum of Art, Center for Fine Art Photography, and Laguna Art Museum, among others. She creates art-science exhibits for aquariums and museums, with a solo exhibit currently on view at the Catalina Museum for Art & History.
3:30PM—Alessandra Moctezuma and Patricio Chavez
“Where We Stand” Juror Talk
Join jurors Patricio Chávez and Alessandra Moctezuma for a conversation exploring the ideas behind Where We Stand, a juried exhibition bringing together artists from the San Diego–Tijuana region.
Through this juror-led discussion, Chávez and Moctezuma will reflect on the selection process, the visual strategies present in the exhibition, and the enduring power of photography to question, reveal, and reshape our understanding of the world around us.
Alessandra Moctezuma is Gallery Director and Professor of Fine Art at San Diego Mesa College, where she leads the Museum Studies program and teaches Chicano Art. She earned Bachelor of Art and Master of Fine Arts degrees from UCLA. Ms. Moctezuma has extensive experience as a curator, instructor, as an artist and as public art administrator. She has curated exhibitions for art spaces including the Oceanside Museum of Art (Twenty Women: NOW, 2021, Borderless Dreams, 2005 and Through a Lens Sharply, 2006 and unDocumenta, 2017, as part of the Getty’s initiative Pacific Standard Time LA/LA). More recently she co-curated a retrospective of Chicana artist Judith F. Baca, Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, for the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach (2021-22). In 2025 she was appointed Chair of the San Diego Arts Commission and represents District 3.
Patricio Chávez is an artist, curator, and educator whose work explores the intersections of culture, politics, and identity in the U.S.–Mexico border region and the Southwest. Originally from New Mexico, he moved to San Diego to serve as Visual Arts Curator at the Centro Cultural de la Raza, where he organized exhibitions and curated projects that toured nationally and internationally, including La Frontera: Art About the U.S.–Mexico Border and La Reconquista for the Istanbul Biennale.
Before relocating to California, Chávez worked extensively in New Mexico’s arts community. His roles included Artist-in-Residence Program Director for the New Mexico Art Division and Minority Field Coordinator, where he expanded participation by artists of color in state arts initiatives. He also directed the ASA Gallery at the University of New Mexico, served as Editor of Conceptions Southwest, a literary arts catalogue, and directed the UNM Film Theatre.
Chávez holds a B.A. from the University of New Mexico and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. His artwork addresses social history, identity, and the cultural landscape of the Southwest and the borderlands. He currently teaches, or has taught, photography, art history, and Chicano art at several colleges and universities in the San Diego region and at Diné College in the Navajo Nation.
4:00PM—Featured Speaker: Leah Ollman
Ensnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography
The Book, The Questions That Generated It, And A Brief Visit Into The Rich Terrain Where Words And Images Meet
Stick around for a book signing following Leah’s talk.
Artist Bio
Leah Ollman has been writing about art for more than 35 years. Her reviews and features have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Photograph, The Brooklyn Rail, Paris Review Daily, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (CARLA), ARTnews, American Craft, and many other publications. She has written essays for books on William Kentridge, Alison Rossiter, Julie Blackmon, Michael Light, Chris McCaw, Klea McKenna, Michal Chelbin and others, and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues. She earned her M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Scripps College. Her book, Ensnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography, was released by Saint Lucy Books in 2025.