Silver Eye

The Radial Survey Vol.4 Symposium will be held at Silver Eye on Friday, November 7 and seeks to create an environment for meaningful dialogue. Join artists, scholars, researchers, and community members from around the region for a day of open conversations inspired by the work in Radial Survey Vol.4 and its broader implications. Registration is free but space is limited to thirty-five participants to facilitate meaningful conversation.

Register!

Symposium Schedule

10:00: Coffee and welcome remarks from Leo Hsu

10.10-11.00 Panel 1: Mapping memory and movement

McNair Evans and Ian John Solomon explore how journeys through place and time shape our sense of belonging. For ten years, Evans traveled the U.S. by Amtrak, documenting the lives of fellow passengers through portraits and their personal testimonies. Ian John Solomon’s practice intertwines identity, ancestral memory, and ritual with a deep commitment to environmental and social justice.

What does it mean to exist in in-between spaces? How do past injustices shape present realities? What futures become possible when we reconnect with the land—and with each other?

11.00-11.10 Break

11.10-12.00: Panel 2: Reimagining Material Histories

Christine Lorenz and Juan Orrantia each consider how natural materials and their representation hold memory and power. Lorenz’s macro photography of salt uncovers the deep geological and cultural histories of West Virginia’s Kanawha River region. Orrantia critically rethinks the still-life genre and its colonial legacies, using strategies like color, collage, and rephotography to disrupt prior narratives.

What stories are held in the materials we overlook? How can a single substance speak to industry, labor, and loss? What becomes possible when we break free from inherited ways of looking?

12-1.30: Lunch: Generously sponsored by Manduhandu

1.30-2.20: Panel 3: Refusal as Experimentation

Amelia Burns and SHAN Wallace challenge traditional ideas of photographic transparency through collage, analog processes, and deliberate ‘imperfection.’ Burns transforms her own archive to create surreal and dreamlike compositions. Wallace uses a 1970s half-frame 35mm camera and analog video mixing to produce “failed” images that question dominant standards of photographic quality.

What happens when images break away from conventional expectations? How do visual norms embedded in photography relate to systems of control? What happens when we refuse clarity?

2.20-2.30: Break

2.30-3.20: Closing Discussion: Futures of the Radius

Since its inaugural edition in 2019, Radial Survey has featured vital artistic voices redefining photography within 300 miles of Pittsburgh. This foundational aim continues, and the program evolves with each new edition, responding to shifting communities and the world around us, and developing discourses.

What spheres and connections shape this radius? How might we perceive it as a multidimensional space that expands through collaboration and exchange? What is at stake for photography today and how do the artists in Radial Survey Vol.4 point ways forward?

Image credit: SHAN Wallace, untitled, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.