Opening reception on January 8, Thursday, 6pm

Silverlens Gallery welcomes 2009 with a photography show by United States based artist Stella Kalaw. Over the last fifty years, the Filipino diaspora has altered the landscape of families and the relationships that bind. Kalaw, having left the Philippines over ten years ago, returns to show Family Spaces, a series of photographs of her immediate family members' homes all over the world. Continents apart, each home is a glimpse of interconnectedness through objects of the everyday Filipino. Worn tsinelas on a stair landing, a tabo floating in a balde, the Sacred Heart of Jesus--all markers of Pinoy identity, they are umbilical cords to the familiar. The color photographs present cultural identity through markers that belong to one extended family, but stand in for any Filipino family anywhere in the world.

Stella Kalaw (b. 1969 in Manila) graduated with a degree in Professional Photography from the Brooks Institute of Photography in California and worked as an intern in Irving Penn’s Studio in New York City shortly after. Kalaw has been part of group shows in Washington, New York, California and at the Ayala Museum in Manila. Her works have garnered awards such as a Honorable Mention in the Polaroid International Awards and the Gold Prize in American Photo Magazine’s New Views Awards.

Family Spaces by Stella Kalaw opens at 6pm on January 8, Thursday and runs until February 7, 2009. There will be an Artist Talk by Stella Kalaw on January 10, Saturday, from 3-5pm. Family Spaces will be shown along with Library Bookworks by Renato Orara at SLab (Silverlens Lab).

Image:
Stella Kalaw
First Lamp at Somerville, 2007