Mandy Lamb and Mikael Kennedy, Self Portrait, Star Island, NH, 2001, Polaroid 600 Film Shot with a Polaroid SX-70, Copyright the artists and courtesy of interrupt art productions

IMAGE CREDIT: Mandy Lamb and Mikael Kennedy, Self Portrait, Star Island, NH, 2001, Polaroid 600 Film Shot with a Polaroid SX-70, Copyright the artists and courtesy of interrupt art productions

interrupt art productions [Selections by Mikael Kennedy + Mandy Lamb]
(Founded 1998 in Amherst, MA; Now based in Brooklyn, NY and all over the US)
Nominated by Robert Seydel

"interrupt art productions" is an artist collective founded in 1998. interrupt has ties to Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY, however it includes representatives from the following cities: San Francisco, Boston, Portland (OR), Providence, and Montreal, and several more.

Featured in the exhibition are Polaroids by two interrupt members, Mikael Kennedy (Brooklyn, NY) and Mandy Lamb (Boston, MA), as well as a self-published book. Sharing an obsession for shooting with vintage SX-70 Polaroid cameras and outdated film, this duo performs for the camera. Their Polaroid work is also featured online within another collective, plrds.com.

Artists' Statement

interrupt art productions was founded in 1998 by photographer Mikael Kennedy as a way to promote and display the work of artists he met in his travels. Mandy Lamb, one of the original members of interrupt, and Mikael lived and traveled together off and on since 1998 both shooting predominately SX-70 land cameras. Often broke and using expired film they learned to customize packs of Polaroid 600 and 779 to fit the SX-70 achieving unpredictable but beautiful results. Presented here is a sampling of 8 original Polaroids from each of the artists and a self published book, presented by interrupt art productions, as an opportunity to look further into the mass of one-of-a-kind images captured over the years by these two artists.

Robert Seydel

(Born 1960, New York, NY; Lives Amherst, MA)

Robert Seydel's involvement with the PRC began in the early 1990s when he became Managing Editor of the PRC's publication, VIEWS: A New England Journal of Photography. In 1992, he was hired as Director of Programs and two years later became Curator, a position he held until 1997 when he left to pursue his own artwork and teach.

After leaving the PRC, Seydel was the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for his photographic series A Short History of Portraiture. Holding a BFA in English and photography from New York University (New York, NY), he received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI). A selection from his ongoing work, The Book of Saul, was published this past year in 1913: A Journal of Forms, issue 2. A one-person exhibition is scheduled for March 2007 at the Cue Foundation Gallery in Chelsea, NY. He currently is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Hampshire College (Amherst, MA).

Related Links

Artists' Statement

Robert Seydel