The MassArt Graduate Programs and Photography department are pleased to welcome JEB as a visiting artist of the Spring 2025 Photography Lecture Series. Please join us in the Tower Auditorium at 2:00pm on Tuesday, April 8th.

JEB (Joan E. Biren) has been influential within LGBTQI+ communities and the wider public by actively challenging the representation of lesbians, the way that we understand photographic history, and how we speak about image-making. Her first book, Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, originally published in 1979, was reissued in 2021 by Anthology Editions. JEB’s second book, Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front will be reissued in 2025. The Dyke Show, described as “an astounding compendium of lesbian imagery and ideas,” was restored and digitized with a new live narration by JEB in 2023. In the 1970s, JEB was a part of two lesbian collectives: The Furies, which produced an historic newspaper and Moonforce Media, which distributed feminist films from 1975 to 1980. In the early 1990s, JEB transitioned from making photographic stills and slideshows to filmmaking. Her films on LGBTQI+ history are available through Frameline distribution. JEB’s photographic work is represented in many collections including the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Getty Museum, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and the Academy of Arts in Berlin, Germany. JEB, now 80 years old, lives surrounded by chosen family and occasionally tries to retire from photography and filmmaking. Her plan is never to retire from social justice activism.

All Photography lectures are free and open to the public. 

Questions? Contact gradprogram@massart.edu

Image detail: © JEB (Joan E. Biren) from Making A Way: Lesbians Out Front. Stormé DeLarverie greets women coming to
The Cubby Hole, a lesbian bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, where she is the bouncer. 1986.