"Meet the Artist" with Alice Proujanksy

On Thursday, August 8, we welcome Alice Proujansky to “Meet the Artist” night at CPW. Proujansky will present a lecture performance adapted from her book Hard Times Are Fighting Times (Gnomic Book, 2023) followed by an audience Q&A. Most families don’t have their parents’ FBI files in dusty boxes. Alice Proujansky's does. Hard Times are Fighting Times describes the legacy of Proujansky’s parents’ participation in radical leftist groups like Weatherman, the Native American Solidarity Committee and Prairie Fire Organizing Committee that sought to overthrow imperialism and capitalism through organizing and revolution. Proujansky photographed her parents’ propaganda archive, surveillance records, family snapshots and current lives, describing their activism, and subsequent turn toward family life, from an intimate distance. She will have copies of her book Hard Times are Fighting Times for sale during the event. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s YouTube Page at 6 pm.

Join us every Thursday evening at CPW, when we host illuminating talks with local and visiting artists. “Meet the Artist” allows the public to get to know new work, to hear about artistic processes, and to meet friends and other local artists. The evening takes place at CPW’s gallery at 474 Broadway in Kingston, NY. It is free and open to the public. Coffee, tea, and snacks are served. “Meet the Artist” is made possible by a generous grant from the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation.

Alice Proujansky is a photographer and quilter looking at family labor: birth, work, motherhood and identity. Her book, Hard Times are Fighting Times (Gnomic Book, 2023), uses archival and documentary photography to examine the legacy of radical activism in her family. Her photographs of culturally-responsive birth work have been published extensively. Alice’s work has been published by Aperture, The Guardian, The New Republic, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Photo District News, The Intercept, The Nation, Virginia Quarterly Review and others. She has received support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, International Women’s Media Fund, Magnum Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Peleh Fund, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Women Photograph. Her work has been exhibited at the Canadian Center for Architecture, Museum of the City of New York, Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York University, Photoville and United Photo Industries. Alice has led workshops for Aperture, the Bass Museum, Fotografiska, the Magnum Foundation and Working Assumptions. She was the lead curriculum writer for Aperture On Sight, a photography and visual literacy curriculum, and her first book, Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids was published by Aperture in 2016. A member of Women Photograph, Alice grew up in Greenfield, MA. She graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Banner images © Alice Proujansky.