Catalyst: Interviews

A bit of a heavy interview with Marcus DeSieno and his work on “Geography of Disappearance: Migrant Deaths on the US/Mexico Border.” This story needs continued attention, so I am reposting it with new images for Catalyst: Interviews. And also to report that this work has just garnered the @centersantafe Project Launch Grant for this year’s awards. Congratulations, Marcus! Link in bio From the intro: “With this project, we see DeSieno’s examination of a dire and hostile situation at the US/Mexico border. Border policies result in the deaths and disappearances of thousands, creating a humanitarian crisis. So much so that this border crossing has been labeled the most dangerous on Earth by the United Nations. These photographs illustrate the story of many who have met a tragic end in the Sonoran Desert while looking for a better life. This significant body of work employs landscape photography of truly horrific consequences, but one that should be known to all.” @marcusdesieno Image: “Unknown Migrant, Female, Cause of Death - Exposure, Their Body Was Found One Week After Death, New Mexico” ©Marcus DeSieno

Interview Excerpt: Question: What about collaboration with others in your work? I do believe that even the human elements represented in your images are you, is that correct? Does anyone else come into the picture, so to speak, at any point in your process? Anna Reed: Yes, they are all images of my body, thus far. I’ve worked with others to program small devices and help me navigate scale. Sometimes, when I’ve looked at images on screen for so long, it’s hard to imagine them in print. It helps to have another set of eyes to flip through test prints and imagine other outputs. I’ve also just started to incorporate others into my images, so we’ll both have to see how this ends up! However, at this point, I can say it’s created an unexpected space for intimacy and performance that the collaborators and I may not share in our day-to-day interactions. For me, that’s the joy of the process; playing off each other’s ideas and finding something new along the way. @annaoreed Image: “Rendering Pleasure”, from the Consumption Device collection. ©Anna Reed

Bio: Anna Reed is a Chicago-based artist and educator whose work addresses the themes of identity, post-humanism, fragmentation, and the boundaries of virtual space. How and where do we exist? Born into Atari and grappling with AI she is continually curious about the intersection of humanity and tech. Created through Xerox, scans, and other low-fi devices, she often uses her body as source images. The physical body confronts the screen and pushes the invisible boundary of human, device, and the virtual. She collaborates with machines and platforms, alternating decisions as the works move from physical to digital and back again. She is a recent recipient of the Me & Eve Award by CENTER and has exhibited at EXPO Chicago, Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, The Turchin Center for the Arts, and various galleries across the nation. Anna currently chairs the Leyden High School Art Department and is the digital gallery director for Art ConnectED. @annaoreed Image: “Sacred and True”, from the Adoration collection. ©Anna Reed

An interview that’s been a long time coming. I’m thrilled to finally present the words and works of photographic artist Anna Reed! Now live at Catalyst: Interviews... Link in bio. From the intro: “Anna is deeply interested in the interaction between humanity and technology, particularly the ways our personal devices reshape how we connect, communicate, and perceive ourselves. It’s not a detached, theoretical concern. It’s something she’s witnessed up close, year after year, quite often through the evolving behaviors of her students. The sheer volume of images, the speed at which they’re consumed, and the blurred line between authenticity and performance all feed into her thinking. But there’s also a more personal undercurrent. Anna talks about her own experience navigating a hyperconnected world with multiple platforms, constant notifications, and the persistent pull of digital life. And beneath that, a question begins to surface: where does the “real” self reside when so much of our existence is fragmented and spread across screens? It’s this tension between presence and absence, connection and isolation, that sits at the core of her work.” @annaoreed Image: “Accept/Reject”, ©Anna Reed

Interview excerpt: Question: What is it that you get out of creating photographs? Is there an overriding theme in your work that you feel best represents you as an artist? Lynne Breitfeller: So many things! I tend to be an overthinker. But when I am creating photographs, I act on intuition and instinct, and I am in the moment. I think of my process as a journey that allows me to tap into my subconscious and helps me understand things better. Oftentimes, ideas or feelings surface that I didn’t even know existed. Engaging in my creative process returns me to a sense of wonder, the way I did as a child. I find it to be transformative and healing in numerous ways. Recurring themes in my work are the complexity and transience of relationships—our relationships with each other, memory and loss, impermanence, and humor. @lynnebreitfellerphoto 📷: From the “After the Fire: Water Damaged” collection, ©Lynne Breitfeller #lynnebreitfeller #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #afterthefire

Bio: Lynne Breitfeller is a visual artist based in New Jersey. She explores both the mundane and unexpected details of everyday life. Human relationships, memory, loss, and humor are recurrent themes in her work. She received her B.A. in English from William Paterson University. After a two-decade career in text book publishing, she returned to the visual arts. Her work has been exhibited at The Griffin Museum (Massachusetts), Center for Fine Art Photography and Colorado Photography Center (Colorado), Soho Photo Gallery (New York), Vermont Center for Photography (Vermont),  Los Angeles Center for Photography and the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (California) and Montclair Art Museum (New Jersey), amongst others. She won first place in Soho Photo Gallery’s 2023 National Competition and was a merit winner in All About Photo Women’s Competition in 2023, the Rfotofolio Open Call 2022, and a finalist in the Lucie Foundation’s Carte Blanche in 2022. Additionally, her work has been featured in Fotofilmic, All About Photo, SHOTS, and Float magazines. @lynnebreitfellerphoto 📷: From the “After the Fire: Water Damaged” collection, ©Lynne Breitfeller #lynnebreitfeller #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #afterthefire

More from Catalyst: Interviews with this reposted and updated interview with visual artist, Lynne Breitfeller. Extraordinary work! /interviews/2026/3/4/lynne-breitfeller From the intro: “In the world of photography, sometimes our most profound moments stem from unexpected challenges. Lynne Breitfeller’s journey is a testament to this truth, as she faced a setback that was entirely beyond her control. The discovery of a third of her analog archive destroyed by water, following a fire in the studio above, could have been a devastating blow. However, for Breitfeller, it became a transformative experience that led to the birth of extraordinary creations. What’s included, beyond this, is her ability to recognize something that can defy expectations as part of any creative process.” @lynnebreitfellerphoto 📷: From the “After the Fire: Water Damaged” collection, ©Lynne Breitfeller #lynnebreitfeller #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #afterthefire

Interview excerpt: Question: What does a typical creative workday look like for you? Is there such a thing? Amanda Marchand: Right now, a workday includes meditating one to two hours a day. That’s been the only constant for the past few months. It really depends. Sometimes I am writing a lot, residency applications, grant applications, working on the computer, post-processing images, placing my books in collections, researching, ordering materials, planning a show… But sometimes, for big stretches, I am making new work. It’s a juggle. At the moment, I have three days a week that are set: a photo-lab day in Manhattan, a day with my studio assistant, and a day mentoring artists. The other two plus a day on the weekend are spent fielding whatever is most pressing. And I’m also a mom to two teenagers. :) @amandabethmarchand 📷: ©Amanda Marchand #amandamarchand #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #lumenprinting

Bio: Amanda Marchand is a Canadian, New York-based photographer whose work focuses on the natural world with an experimental approach to photography. She has been recognized as a fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, MacDowell Colony, and Headlands Center for the Arts. Recent honors include the 2024 LensCulture Awards, the 2023 Julia Margaret Cameron Photography Awards, the 2022 Silver List, Medium Photo Festival’s Second Sight Award in 2021, and Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 in 2021. Marchand is represented by Traywick Contemporary and Rick Wester Fine Art. Her work has been reviewed in ARTnews, The Marginalian, LensCulture, Aint’ Bad Magazine, Fraction Magazine, among others, and is part of the collections of the Getty, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Glen MUHC Hospital, Stanford University Library, The New York Public Library, and the Cassilhaus Collection. @amandabethmarchand 📷: ©Amanda Marchand #amandamarchand #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #lumenprinting

My interview with the uber-talented Amanda Marchand has only been previously available in Edition 6 of Analog Forever Magazine. Since it is now sold out, I think it’s time for a small update and an add to Catalyst: Interviews. Amanda is an amazing artist who regularly exhibits her work, publishes monographs, and is an amazing collaborator. Sounds like the perfect person to speak to and learn from to me! (Link in bio) From the intro: “There’s a lot to unpack and learn from her, as Marchand has an incredible amount of experience from the years of fascination for the mediums that inform her images. Continuously changing and evolving through processes that feed her concepts, she is prolific and seemingly unceasing in the creation of her art. She is an artist always searching to find the best course of action to answer her eternal question. With this point, we want to present to our readers an artist who has spent the time, done the work, and has some thoughts on just what a photograph could be.” @amandabethmarchand 📷: ©Amanda Marchand #amandamarchand #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #lumenprinting

Interview excerpt: Question: Your use of alternative photographic and printing techniques often adds a layer of unpredictability to the work. How do you decide when to surrender to process and when to assert control over it? Melanie Shoeniger: Love that you mention unpredictability, it is super important for me. 
I think of it as a kind of freedom and openness, a door towards the field of possibilities; as something inherent in how nature evolves and emerges (think of the cells in a caterpillar turning into a moth, incredibly mind-boggling) It reflects my way of working with the flow, my intuition, the materials; my process always feels like a dialogue or a dance. It enables co-creation, and something unique arises that cannot be reproduced exactly in this way again. (Without it, it would be just a linear, limited, foreseeable machine-like operation). In practice, I trust my intuition. Also, it depends on whether I am honing my skills and might ruin a piece to get the answer to a question that appears, like what happens if I add/do this and that. Those are stepping stones for future paths I might not have taken without risking, so I cherish them, too. And try to start again with my new knowledge, which might take some time and patience, and I will enjoy it along the way. Always trying to keep a beginner’s mindset, approach it with a fresh perspective, and avoid the perfectionistic trap. @_ma_vida 📷: From the “Oceanic Feeling” collection ©Melanie Schoeniger #melanieschoeniger #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #oceanicfeeling

Bio: Unpacking the wonder of being alive, Melanie Schoeniger explores themes such as perception and interconnectedness and contemplates our place in the larger scheme of things. The German artist uses a philosophical yet intuitive approach to reveal the beauty and essence of nature as a means to create awe and wonder and to uncover mysteries beyond all stardust. To honor a sustainable process, Melanie experiments with alternative printing techniques and materials; she also creates handmade artist books. She perceives all her work as fundamentally being climate work, contributing to a life-sustaining future.* Her award-winning work has been published and on view internationally. *She is a member of Eco Echo Art Collective @_ma_vida 📷: From the “Octopus Garden” collection ©Melanie Schoeniger #melanieschoeniger #creativeprocess #photography #artistinterview #octopusgarden