Midwest SPE | Minneapolis

Registration for the October 29-31, 2009 conference is now open!

Please download the registration form and either fax or mail it to the address/number listed at the bottom.

Please note that if you would like to receive a portfolio review, that assignments will be done on a first registered, first served basis. The earlier you register, the higher the probability you will not only get a review or reviews, but one with exactly who you want.

Save money by registering early! Late and on-site registrations are charged at a higher rate.

Don’t forget, we will be looking for a few student volunteers. These too will be assigned on a first come-first served basis. If you want to be a student volunteer, you must be able to attend one of two orientation meetings on Thursday, October 29th at 12pm or 5pm. In addition to this meeting, volunteers will be expected to work 5 hours over the course of the conference. Some of the student volunteers who are able to attend the earlier orientation can knock down many of their hours on Thursday doing prep work. Don’t forget to enclose a xerox of your current student ID. If ID doesn’t show the date, also send a copy of your current course schedule.

Please email Colleen Mullins (cmullins@aii.edu) for any further information.

Scheduled Speakers

Keynote Speaker: Ian Frazier
Thursday, October 29 - 8pm
Ian Frazier was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1951. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 1973 and became a staff writer at The New Yorker just one year later. When Ian Frazier’s debut book, Dating Your Mom, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1986, Walter Clemons wrote in Newsweek, “He may be the best master of gentle laid-back befuddlement since Benchley, who had a great gift of being funny without being caught working at it.”

His third book, Great Plains, (FSG, 1989; a New York Times bestseller), was praised for its “humor and artistry” by Ron Hansen (The Washington Post Book World) and its “clear, vigorous prose that can stun you with simple found beauty” (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times). Charles Trueheart of The Washington Post proclaimed Frazier “one of the best of his generation of the New Yorker writers.” Other books include Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody, Family, Coyote v. Acme, a collection of Frazier’s humorous essays (which received the inaugural Thurber Prize for American Humor in 1997), On the Rez, an examination of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, The Fish’s Eye, Gone to New York, a collection of essays that The Boston Globe called “classics of (the) genre”, and Lamentations of the Father.

Frazier, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, makes his home in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.

Featured Speaker: Alec Soth
Friday, October 30, 7:00pm (with reception preceding)
Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the recipient of several major fellowships from the Bush, McKnight and Jerome Foundations and was awarded the 2003 Santa Fe Prize for Photography. His work is represented in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Soth's photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 2004 Whitney and São Paulo Biennials. His first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was published by Steidl in 2004 to critical acclaim. Since then Soth has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogotá (2007) and The Last Days of W (2008). Soth is represented by Gagosian Gallery in New York, Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis, and is a member of Magnum Photos.

Honored Educator: Gary Hallman
Saturday, October 31, 4:00pm
Gary Hallman is an educator and an artist whose creative work is based in photography. He received his MFA in 1971 from the University of Minnesota. His work has been exhibited in national and international solo and group exhibitions since the late 60’s, and is represented in numerous major national collections. Additionally, he has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowships, The Bush Foundation Fellowship for Artists, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, and numerous others. Hallman has been a professor in the Department of Art, University of Minnesota for 38 years, and has taught as visiting artist at Colorado College, the University of New Mexico, the Rhode Island School of Design, and Southampton College, New York. His vision and mentorship have touched thousands of budding photographers in his long tenure at the University of Minnesota. In recent years, as a promoter of graduate students and both full-time and adjunct faculty, he’s curated exhibitions in China and Russia. As an early adopter of digital technology, Hallman was instrumental in bringing his students on visits into the digital arena, well before they knew they’d end up living there.