Guest Edition Combo

Connection and community lie at the heart of ODE by Melissa Schriek, Genesis by Juan Brenner, and Common Place by Scott Rossi. Through their distinct photographic projects, these artists explore the profound ways in which relationships—between people, cultures, and environments—shape our understanding of the world and ourselves.

In ODE, Schriek examines the dynamics of female friendship, celebrating its strength, unity, and authenticity. By focusing on pairs of best friends and capturing their connections through body language and movement in public spaces, she challenges reductive portrayals of female relationships in popular media. Schriek’s work reclaims these narratives, presenting friendship as a powerful, nurturing bond that is often overlooked or misrepresented.

Brenner’s Genesis turns its lens to the Guatemalan Highlands, where he documents the lives and culture of a generation at the crossroads of tradition and transformation. Over five years, Brenner has captured the region’s youth as they navigate the complexities of identity in a changing world, becoming the first to forge meaningful dialogue with global contemporaries. His work is a testament to the evolving bonds within a community and the cultural processes that define belonging.

In Common Place, Rossi shifts focus to a public space—Central Park—and its role in the lives of New Yorkers. Through a visual meditation on the park’s democratic design, he reveals its enduring importance as a sanctuary where individuals find solace, connection, and joy amid urban chaos. During a global crisis, Rossi’s work underscores how shared spaces foster collective healing and reinforce the human spirit.

What unites these three projects is their commitment to portraying underexplored narratives and their use of photography to illuminate the connections that define us. Whether examining the intimacy of friendship, the resilience of cultural identity, or the restorative power of public spaces, Schriek, Brenner, and Rossi invite us to reflect on the threads that bind people to one another and their environments. Together, their works form a powerful exploration of the human experience, framed through different yet complementary perspectives.