Jocelyn Boigenzahn, a local museum professional and lecturer in museum studies in the Tampa Bay area, has been an active curator of contemporary work by local, regional, and national artists while supporting the career growth of art and design students at the University of Tampa. Jocelyn holds a master’s in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University and a master`s in Art History from the University of Florida. Jocelyn Boigenzahn joined the University of Tampa as the Director of the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery in 2017, after eight years in registration and curatorial roles. Over her Directorship, Jocelyn has expanded the Outreach and Programming of the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery to connect with the greater Tampa Bay community and transformed it into the College of Arts and Letters Galleries with the addition of the Saunders Foundation Art and the Ferman Student Study Galleries with the 2021 opening of the Ferman Center for the Arts on UT`s campus.
Steven Benson is a photographer/videographer and contributing curator to the SE Museum of Photography based in Orlando and Costa Rica. He was formerly Professor of Photography/Video and Chair of the School of Photography and Media Studies at Daytona State College, as well as Chair of the Interactive Media program (twice). He holds a BFA from the College for Creative Studies and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is the recipient of three Creative Artist Grants-Michigan Council for the Arts and a NEA/ArtsMidwest Fellowship. His work is represented in numerous collections, including the Museum of Fine Art-Houston, Detroit Institute of Arts, Bibliotheque Nationale-France, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Museet for Fotokunst-Denmark. Solo exhibitions of his photography include the Centre Georges Pompidou and photography festivals/biennials/triennials in Argentina, South Korea, Germany, Syria, Poland, China, Denmark and FotoFest (twice). Retrospectives of his work were on view at the Southeast Museum of Photography and Le Bord de Marne Centre, France. Recently on view: “Invented Observations”, a 35-year survey of B&W work at the Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, Fl. The Russian curator Dr. Irina Chmyreva included a series of his hand-colored images, “Incantations,” in the exhibition “Spiritual Landscape,” curated for the Pingyao International Festival of Photography in China; Sept/2023.
As a Contributing Curator for the SE Museum of Photography, he has produced the exhibitions; “Roger Ballen: in Retrospect – Four Decades of Photography and Video” and ‘Mind Over Matter: The Photography of Arno Raphael Minkkinen’ among others. Recently on view, “Gathering Light: One Collector’s Journey”; a selection from Steven’s extensive personal photography collection; curated by Whitney Broadaway, the museum’s former director.; 2022.
Steven has served on the National Board of Directors of the Society for Photographic Education and is currently VP on the Board of ASMP Greater Florida and VP of the Board of Directors of SNAP! Orlando.
Amanda Cooper is a fifth-generation Floridian and native of St. Petersburg, and received a BA in Art History from the University of Florida in 1997. Since 1999, she has worked as Curator of Exhibitions (now Chief Curator) at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, organizing over 400 exhibitions, including works in all media by students, established and emerging artists, and children. She has also served as a juror for various art exhibitions including Dunedin Art Harvest, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards exhibition, Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, FolkFest St. Pete, Melbourne Arts Festival, ArtFest Fort Myers, Ocala Arts Festival and the Pinellas Association of Visual Artists Cool Art Show. She has served on art panels for Pinellas County and the State of Florida, awarding several public art projects and individual artist grants, and has been a member of the steering committee for the SHINE Mural Festival since 2015. She lives in St. Pete with her husband, three children, and two cats.
Geoffrey Baris, has been a renowned international fine art and fashion photographer for over 45 years. Throughout his career, he has photographed for most major retailers, created album covers and magazines, and taken portraits of many celebrities. His fine art photographs have been featured in art shows and represented by galleries all over the US. His work has been purchased by over 200 major hotels, art consultants, and interior designers, and loved and collected by people seeking unique and special art.
Thomas Sayers Ellis is SPMOP Photo Laureate 2023, a poet and bandleader. He is author of the of The Maverick Room (2005), Skin Inc.: Identity Repair Poems (2010), The Corny Toys (2019), Crank Shaped Notes (2021) and Mexico, a book of photographs, (2021). A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry (2015), his poems have appeared in Best American Poetry (1997, 2001, 2010, 2015), The Paris Review, Poetry, The Nation and numerous anthologies. In 2014, he co-founded Heroes Are Gang Leaders, a Free Jazz literary band of musicians and artists who were awarded the American Book Award for Oral Literature in 2018. HAGL has released six CDs and performed in Paris, Berlin, New York City, Washington, D.C., Gdansk, Lisbon and the Hague. The Leica Fotografie International Online Gallery chose Ellis’s photograph “The Sun 6,” (taken in Daytona Beach, Florida) as the Picture of the Week, March 14, 2017. In 2019 and 2022 his photography was the focus of two solo exhibitions: “Manually Forcing All Modes of ReSKINstance Into Fo(lk)cus” and "Photosynchronologies: Fragments of a Poetic Time" both presented at Studiottantuno Contemporary Art Projects in Mantova, Italy. In addition, he writes an online column on photography, poetics and culture titled "Fo(lk)cal fr–aim" for the Arrowsmith Press Journal.
*FULL* Robin O'Dell, is the Executive Curator for the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Ybor City, as well as a contributing writer for The Artisan Magazine and Creative Pinellas’ Arts Coast Magazine. Formerly the Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, she has also worked with the Keith Haring Archive in New York, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, the George Eastman Museum, and the Roman Vishniac Archive at the International Center of Photography in New York City, as well as others.
Beth Reynolds, the founder of the photographic arts program at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, and the first Photo Laureate for the city of Tampa. She earned a Master’s in Fine Arts in Photography from the University of Hartford and has been an arts educator for almost 20 years.
Marieke van der Krabben, is a curator and photography historian. After receiving a BA in Art History and a MA in Film and Photographic Studies from Leiden University in the Netherlands, she worked as a junior curator at the Museum of Photography in The Hague. Additionally, she was the curator and creative director for the International Photo Festival Leiden for 3 years. Marieke has co-authored photography books and has written for art-related magazines. She was previously a curator at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Tampa and is currently the executive director and co-founder of the Saint Petersburg Month of Photography.
