The institutionalization and historicization of photography began with rigor in the 1970s. Since then, the Davis Museum has stewarded and grown a robust photography collection that represents a range of approaches, uses, and interpretations of the medium. From the vernacular to the iconic, from serial projects to singular works, recent acquisitions continue to expand the geographic, cultural, and technical scope of the museum’s photographic holdings. With this selection, the Davis is pleased to present works by two up-and-coming women photographers: Haley Morris-Cafiero and Habiba Nowrose. Both offer new takes on portraiture, one of photography’s oldest genres. Each in her own way exploits the performance of posing for the camera to confront societal expectations around body image and identity.

Haley Morris-Cafiero (b. 1976, Memphis, Tennessee) holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and is a Lecturer in Photography at the Belfast School of Art at Ulster University, Ireland. She was nominated for a Prix Pictet in 2014 and was a 2016 Fulbright Finalist. She has had solo exhibitions at UPI Gallery in New York (2017), the University of Dayton (2018), and at the Centre de la Photographie Geneve in Geneva, Switzerland (2019).

Habiba Nowrose (b. 1989, Dhaka, Bangladesh) holds an M.S. in Women & Gender Studies from the University of Dhaka and is currently enrolled in the Professional Program on Photography at the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. Her series, Concealed, was a finalist for the 2018 Invisible Photographers Awards.

Curated by Carrie Cushman, the Linda Wyatt Gruber ‘66 Curatorial Fellow in Photography, the exhibition is generously supported with funds given through the generosity of Linda Wyatt Gruber (Class of 1966).