The MassArt Graduate Programs and Photography department are pleased to welcome Shala Miller as the first visiting artist of the Fall 2025 Photography Lecture Series. Please join us in the Tower Auditorium at 2:00pm on Tuesday, September 16.

Shala Miller, (b. 1993, Cleveland, OH) also known as Freddie June when they sing, was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio by two southerners named Al and Ruby. At around the age of 10 or 11, Miller discovered quietude, the kind you’re sort of pushed into, and then was fooled into thinking that this is where they should stay put. Since then, Miller has been trying to find their way out, and find their way into an understanding of themself and their history, using photography, video, writing and singing as an aid in this process.

Taking up skin as a site of history and intimacy with the self and across generations, they hold space for the body’s vulnerabilities and maladies. Miller works across photography, film, writing, music, and performance as a means of meditating on the conjunction of desire, mourning, pain, and pleasure.

Miller holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their book, Tender Noted, was voted best photo book of 2022 by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and their artwork is in the collections of MoMA, the Studio Museum, the Hessel Museum, the Akeroyd Collection and The Lumber Room, among others.

All Photography lectures are free and open to the public. 

Questions? Contact gradprogram@massart.edu

Image detail: Shala Miller, Heavenly Father: Composition #4