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Events

The Artist and the Book | Diana Matar in Conversation with Lisa Volpe

Date & Time

Sat. Apr. 11, 2026 4 PM-5 PM
This event has passed

Location Main Campus | Beck Building

Parking at Beck Garage
Drop off at Beck Building

Call for Questions 713-639-7325

Email Your Questions [email protected]

Events

The Artist and the Book | Diana Matar in Conversation with Lisa Volpe

Date & Time

Sat. Apr. 11, 2026 4 PM-5 PM
This event has passed

Location Main Campus | Beck Building

Parking at Beck Garage
Drop off at Beck Building
Artists have long used books as tools for education and inspiration. Increasingly, contemporary artists make books and research central to their artistic practice, mining the past in order to create new narratives. This series engages artists in conversation about the nature of books, research, and the creative process.
 
In this conversation, photographer Diana Matar speaks with curator Lisa Volpe about how books and research are vital elements of the creative process. Matar is a photographer whose work has focused on the link between landscape, violence and memory. Her most recent body of work, My America is an inquiry into—and a critique—of law enforcement in the United States. Over the course of eight years, Matar documented in 110 photographs locations where citizens died in encounters with law enforcement officers. In the process, she presents a powerful case in which landscape and memory collide with social history and issues of discrimination.
 
The author's book is available for purchase, and a book signing follows the discussion.
 

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About the Speakers
Diana Matar is professor of professional practice and distinguished artist at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. Her work investigates themes of history, memory, and state-sponsored violence. She has received the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for Fine Art, as well as grant funding from the Ford Foundation, Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography, and Arts Council of England. Matar's work is held in public and private collections and has been exhibited at institutions including the MFAH; Tate Modern; Museum Folkwang, Essen; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.

Lisa Volpe is the curator of photography at the MFAH. She earned her MA at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and her PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her 2021 exhibition catalogue Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer was a finalist for the Association of American Publishers Prose Awards. Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael and Black Power, published for the 2022 exhibition, was named a “must read” by Esquire and New York magazines.

Call for Questions 713-639-7325

Email Your Questions [email protected]

This program is hosted in collaboration with First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, which is mounting an exhibition of more than 60 prints from Matar’s My America during FotoFest.
 
This program receives generous funding from Judy and Scott Nyquist and the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation.
Learning and Interpretation programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, receive generous support from H-E-B; Sempra Foundation; the Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; the Joe Barnhart Foundation; the Cockrell Family Fund; the CFP Foundation; the Claire & Theodore Morse Foundation; the Junior League of Houston, Inc.; and additional generous donors.
 
Endowment funds are provided by the Louise Jarrett Moran Bequest; Caroline Wiess Law; Windgate Foundation; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff; the Fondren Foundation; BMC Software, Inc.; the Wallace Foundation; the Neal Myers and Ken Black Children’s Art Fund; the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; Medha and Shashank Karve; Virginia and Ira Jackson; Jesse H. Jones II; the CFP Foundation; the Favrot Fund; gifts in memory of John Wynne; Neiman Marcus Youth Arts Education; gifts in memory of Peter Lotz; and gifts in honor of Beth Schneider.