This fall the School of Visual Arts (SVA) Masters of Professional Studies (MPS) in Digital Photography program will celebrate the tenth anniversary of its i3: Ideas, Images and Inspiration lecture series, part of the program’s course of the same name. In addition to an impressive lineup of guest speakers from September through June, the anniversary will also be celebrated with a special exhibition this fall at Brooklyn’s famed Photoville, which has been presenting exhibitions in outdoor public spaces throughout New York City for a decade. 

Launched in 2011 by founding chair of the program Katrin Eismann and continued by current program chair Tom P. Ashe, the i3 lecture series has historically offered free and public lectures by esteemed thought-leaders from across the photography industry, beginning with celebrated photographer and SVA faculty member Elinor Carucci. Since then, there have been over 184 lectures including photographers, editors, gallerists, software engineers, and curators from guests such as Cig Harvey, Robert Herman, Greg Gorman, Yulia Gorbachenko, John Edwin Mason, Kira Pollack, Jerry Takigawa, and Ruddy Roye. Nearly all of the past lectures are available on Vimeo and YouTube and have amassed more than 750,000 views, making them a tremendous resource for photography enthusiasts, educators, and students around the world.

This year’s i3 series will be curated by Eismann with a premiere lecture by long-time curator and host of the series, alumnus of the program and documentary photographer, Jaime Permuth on September 14. The series will continue every other Tuesday from 7:00-8:30pm via Zoom, with the first half of the 2021-22 schedule below:

• September 28th: Marvi Lacar, documentary photographer and filmmaker 
• October 12th: Russell Brown, Senior Creative Director at Adobe Systems 
• October 26th: Malike Sidibe, fashion and documentary photographer 
• November 9th: Wendel White, photographer and professor of art 
• November 30th: Suzanne Stein, street photographer 
• December 14th: Polly Irunga, multimedia journalist & founder of Black Women Photographers

“We are honored to welcome Katrin Eismann back into the fold for this special anniversary of the series she founded ten years ago,” said Tom P. Ashe. “This year’s speakers are an inspiring group of visionaries and industry heavy-hitters and we can’t wait to share with our community. It is especially fitting to have Jaime Permuth as the first speaker for this anniversary season, since he has been so important to our community and the first ten years of the i3 Lectures.”

Permuth will also be curating the Photoville exhibition “On Turning Ten: An i3 Family Album,” which will be on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 3 from September 18 through December 1. The exhibition will feature 17 photographers and past i3 series lecturers, many of whom have gone on to become part of the MPS Digital Photography program as faculty, guest critics, or thesis advisors. Visitors will see work from acclaimed artists including Jon Henry, Jennifer McClure, Richard Renaldi, Pixy Liao and Carucci exploring themes of family, love and interconnectedness. The exhibition is co-sponsored by SVA and Calibrite, a newly formed company dedicated to servicing the color management needs of the photo, video, and content creation markets.

The MPS Digital Photography program at SVA is an intensive, one-year graduate degree program that addresses the technical and creative aspects of current digital image practices, which professional photographers and photo educators require to be at the vanguard of contemporary fine art, commercial, portrait and fashion photography practices. Within the year, the diverse and talented students excel at producing technically outstanding and conceptually compelling images and multimedia projects, and are ideally positioned to pursue gallery representation, editorial or commercial work, as well as high-end digital retouching and consulting careers.

School of Visual Arts has been a leader in the education of artists, designers and creative professionals for seven decades. With a faculty of distinguished working professionals, a dynamic curriculum and an emphasis on critical thinking, SVA is a catalyst for innovation and social responsibility. Comprising 7,000 students at its Manhattan campus and more than 40,000 alumni in 128 countries, SVA also represents one of the most influential artistic communities in the world. For information about the College’s 30 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, visit sva.edu.