Present Tense Artist Talks
Event date: Nov 21, 2026, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
PRESENT TENSE ARTIST TALKS are quarterly events hosted by Medium Photo that spotlight emerging voices in photography.
Each program begins with a public portfolio walk, where eight artists share a recent photographic project in an informal, conversational setting. From there, four artists are selected to deliver 15-minute talks, offering deeper insight into their work and creative process.
During each talk, artists present a single body of work projected on screen, bringing their images to life through personal reflections on process, ideas, and stories. Each presentation concludes with an open Q&A, giving the audience a chance to connect directly with the artist.
Designed to be welcoming and engaging, Present Tense fosters meaningful dialogue between artists and community. For Present Tense 10 Submissions are FREE, and all events are free and open to the public.
Present Tense Artist Talks, Nov 21, 2026
Location:
Mission Valley Library
2123 Fenton Pkwy
San Diego, CA 92108
Event Timeline
2:00 - 2:50 Open Portfolio Walk
3:00 - 4:30 Present Tense Artist Talks
4:30 - 5:00 Peer networking
Present Tense #10 Juror: Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Professor, Visual Arts Department, University of California San Diego
Each edition of Present Tense Artist Talks will have a different juror of note drawn from across North America, and each juror will select three presenters for the talks, and four additional artists for the portfolio walk. The fourth presenter at each Present Tense talk is a student selected by the faculty of a participating college. For the 10th iteration of Present Tense the Juror is also the faculty member selecting the designated student presenter.
About Paul
Paul Mpagi Sepuya (b. 1982, San Bernardino, CA) is an artist working in photography whose projects weave together histories and possibilities of portraiture, queer and homoerotic networks of production and collaboration, and the material and conceptual potential of blackness at the heart of the medium. The sites of production have been an equally important subject of his works, especially the artist-photographer’s studio as a center for production, accumulation and play. His interests also include queer literary modernism, questions of artistic responsibility and care regarding representation and refusal.
He is a professor in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD. In addition to teaching he has recently juried the Athenaeum Music and Arts Libraries 34th Annual Juried Exhibition.
You can find Paul’s work on his website www.paulsepuya.com and you can find out more at his UCSD bio page. Also you can check out Paul’s Instagram account @pagmi.
Submissions & File Formats - DEADLINE TO SUBMIT OCT 25, 2026
You are invited to submit 15–20 images from a single body of work. If selected, all of these files will be projected at Present Tense Artist Talks during your presentation. You will also be asked to bring printed versions of these images to the event for the public portfolio walk, in addition to the digital files used for projection. If your work extends beyond traditional prints, you are welcome to bring mixed media or three-dimensional pieces that represents the project.
File Requirements:
JPEG files only
Files must be 2000px in the long dimension, saved at 1MB or smaller
Images must be numbered in the sequence you want them seen, with title, media and year using this naming convention:
sequence #-title-media-year.jpg
example: 01-Seaweed-Cyanotype-2023
Incomplete submissions will not be considered.