The Lost Family in the Maloof Gallery of the Atlanta Photography Group March – April 2025
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Lost Family in the news: Read ARTS ATL’s thoughtful review of the exhibit
Artist Statement
Our world has progressed in many ways, yet we continue to regress in fostering community and well-being. Families today face profound challenges: rising rates of youth suicide, school violence, and pervasive loneliness. These struggles expose the fractures in a society that often prioritizes individualism over the collective.
In this series, I worked with over 20 families in Atlanta, capturing their stories through long-exposure photographs and candid moments that reveal the raw, emotional realities of modern parenthood. The long exposures highlight the unpredictable, vibrant movements of children while reflecting the turbulent storms many parents navigate daily.
This project is deeply personal. As a single mother who left the U.S. Virgin Islands—a place where community was integral—for the isolation of Atlanta, I felt the profound loss of a “village.” That contrast informs every frame, exploring resilience and longing across families of diverse backgrounds.
The exhibition immerses viewers in this exploration, presenting fine art photographic prints as a modern take on a traditional family portrait but with current realities represented. These patterns symbolize our current fragmented reality, isolated from community and the natural world. Printed textiles hint at the project’s next iteration: a vision that reconciles this fragmentation by reconnecting to our indigenous rhythms and the cycles of the planet that bring us toward connection.
Inspired by works like Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series and Aracelis Girmay’s You Are Who I Love, this series reflects on legacy—what we carry forward and how cultural shifts shape the stories we tell. By inviting viewers to engage with the tactile elements of family life and contribute to a communal scrapbook, the exhibition calls for dialogue and action.
How can we rebuild the villages that nurture us all? And how can art shape a culture that fosters connection and well-being? At its core, this project is a meditation on our shared humanity and the transformative power of connection and art.
Additional Reading and References:
Aracelis Girmay “You Are Who I Love”
Carrie Mae Weems “Kitchen Table Series”
“Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America,” 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General
“Protecting Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory” 2021
“The State of Mental Health in America,” 2023 Mental Health America
“State of Homelessness: 2024 Edition,” 2024, National Alliance to End Homelessness
“State of Suicide by State,” 2022, Centers of Disease Control
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Stephanie Hanlon’s photographic series The Lost Family Exposes the Silent Crisis Facing Today’s Youth and Families
An Exhibition Unveiling the Fallout of a Society in Isolation
[Atlanta, GA]— Against the backdrop of rising youth suicide rates, escalating school violence, and pervasive loneliness, photographer Stephanie Hanlon’s The Lost Family: Summoning the Courage, Making the Cobbler offers a haunting reflection on the unraveling of communal bonds in modern American society with a focus on Atlanta.
The solo exhibition, opening March 20, 2025, in the Maloof Gallery at the Atlanta Photography Group, captures the untold struggles of families navigating a world where the “village” has disappeared. A roundtable discussion on March 22, 2025 featuring novelist and Emory Professor Tiphanie Yanique, award winning Atlanta photographer and filmmaker Lynsey Weatherspoon, and The Tenth Executive Director Nasim Fluker will discuss the underlying issues represented in The Lost Family, as well as how we build community and use art to solve modern problems.
Sobering statistics paint a stark picture of this growing crisis:
- Youth suicide rates have surged by 60% in the past decade (CDC).
- Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death for those aged 10–14 in the United States. America’s Health Rankings
- The U.S. Surgeon General has highlighted a significant public health concern regarding parental stress.
- The U.S. Surgeon General points to isolation and loneliness as one of the most significant public health crisis of our time, more deadly than smoking cigarettes daily or being obese
Through a series of long-exposure photographs shot on medium format film and layered fabric installations, Hanlon’s work reveals the chaos, resilience, and longing that define the modern family experience. Each frame documents moments of vulnerability and strength, urging viewers to confront the emotional cost of prioritizing individualism over collective care.
Roundtable Discussion: Family, Isolation, Art and Building a Village
On March 22, 2025, Hanlon will host a roundtable discussion at the gallery featuring Weatherspoon, Fluker and Yanique as the moderator. Alongside Stephanie they will explore the societal forces driving this crisis and the role of art and community in healing fractured communities. Each of the speakers, in their own way, is doing work to build community as strong cultural leaders.
About the Exhibition
Inspired by her experience as a single mother raising her daughter in Atlanta, Hanlon developed The Lost Family to highlight the emotional toll of raising children without a supportive “village.” Having lived for over a decade in the U.S. Virgin Islands—a place where community was central—Hanlon felt the stark contrast upon relocating back to the mainland United States, where isolation and disconnection prevail.
The exhibition features fine art photography that uses long-exposure techniques to capture the unfiltered movement and emotion of children, paired with fabric panels that hint at the project’s next solution-based iteration. It challenges users to reflect on their role as members of the village, or how they can more consciously engage in that role. Influenced by works like Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series and Aracelis Grimay’s poem You Are Who I Love, The Lost Family offers an immersive experience that combines storytelling with a call to action.
Event Details
Exhibition Opening and Artist Talk
- Date: Thursday, March 20, 2025
- Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
- Location: Maloof Gallery, Atlanta Photography Group, Ansley Mall
Roundtable Discussion
- Date: Saturday, March 22, 2025
- Time: 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
- Location: Atlanta Photography Group, Ansley Mall
Stephanie Hanlon Bio
Stephanie Hanlon is an Atlanta-based photographer whose evocative work explores the intersections of family, memory, and the impact of modern society on human connection. With nearly 20 years of experience as a photographer and journalist, she began her career documenting protests, government, and business in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York. Now, she uses her lens to capture the nuanced stories of American families, drawing from her own experiences as a single mother raising her daughter without a traditional support system.
Her work was awarded First Prize in the Narrative Power of Black and White exhibit juried by Shots Magazine editor Elizabeth Flinsch and was a 2024 Photo Lucida Critical Mass finalist. She has exhibited at the Atlanta Photography Group and has been featured in Shots Magazine and the Atlanta Center for Photography’s photobook New South.
Stephanie’s current project, The Lost Family, is a powerful exploration of family structures and the growing mental health crisis among today’s youth. Through film-based photography, she examines the isolation felt by both parents and children, connecting these struggles to urgent issues such as rising youth depression and suicide rates. Her work not only sheds light on these challenges but also fosters community and advocacy. During this project, she has helped families share their stories and connect with critical resources.
Using a Rolleiflex medium-format camera gifted by her father, Stephanie embraces the timeless artistry of analog photography to explore themes of legacy, intergenerational connection, and cultural shifts. Her images ask urgent questions about the toll of individualism on families, offering a moving testament to resilience, vulnerability, and the power of storytelling. Her use of long exposures and blur replicate the real storm modern American families are experiencing in isolation.
Tiphanie Yanique Bio
Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer.
Tiphanie is the author of the novel, Monster in the Middle, which was published in 2021 and on numerous best of the year lists. Monster in the Middle was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and is a finalist for the Townsend Prize.
Tiphanie is also the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the Bocas Prize in Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection, the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She is the author of a collection of stories, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, which won her a listing as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5Under35 and the Bocas Prize in Fiction.
Her writing has won the Boston Review Prize in Fiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, an Academy of American Poet’s Prize and two Fulbright Scholarships.
Tiphanie is also an outspoken activist on behalf of the Caribbean, having appeared on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and published an op-ed in The New York Times on the US response to hurricanes in the Caribbean.
Tiphanie is from the Virgin Islands and is Professor at Emory University.
Lynsey Weatherspoon Bio
Lynsey Weatherspoon’s first photography teacher was her late mother, Rhonda. Like her mentor-in-her-head Carrie Mae Weems, that first camera – a gift – delivered purpose. Her career includes editorial and commercial work that has been inspired and powered by her first teacher’s love and lessons.
The #blackqueergirl is an award winning photographer, portraitist and director based in Atlanta and Birmingham. Using both photography and filmmaking as tools to tell stories, Weatherspoon’s work has been featured in print and online in such publications as The New York Times, USA Today, NPR, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, ESPN and ESPN-owned The Undefeated.
As a member of a modern vanguard of photographers, she is often called on to capture heritage and history in real time. The Equal Justice Institute’s Bryan Stevenson. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. The Legacy Museum. Ronnie the shoe repairman in downtown Birmingham. The people of the Gullah-Geechee Corridor. An entire family infected with and affected by a pandemic. Demonstrators with raised fists and sad, vulnerable eyes. The sons and daughters of history. The mothers of children who died making history. The majesty of Mardi Gras. The loving hands of family caregivers.
Lynsey Weatherspoon’s work has been exhibited at The African American Museum in Philadelphia and Photoville NYC. She is an awardee, The Lit List, 2018. Her affiliations include Diversify Photo, Authority Collective, and Women Photograph, as well as National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), Professional Photographers Association (PPA), American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), and American Photographic Artists (APA). She was also named a Canon Explorer of Light in 2020, and became a member of IATSE Local 600 in 2022.
Nasim Fluker Bio
Nasim M. Fluker is the co- founder Thrdspace, a company that teaches organizations how to leverage the power of community-building to engage, attract, and sustain audiences. She is also the CEO of the Tenth, an Atlanta-based membership community for intellectually curious people to gather, grow, and build.
Nasim has been a trusted advisor and engagement strategist for mission-based organizations for over fifteen years. Her commitment to high-functioning and transformational communities has guided her professional trajectory that has included experience in international development, applied sociology, and neighborhood revitalization. She brings the unique mix of expertise in developing the socio-cultural, physical, and political infrastructure needed for community building.
She has previously served as the deputy director of the All We Can Save Project, an organization focused on growing and nurturing climate leadership and the Director of Programs at the Westside Future Fund, a community development non-profit.
Nasim is a graduate of Lead Atlanta (2016), Arts Leaders of Metro Atlanta (2018), and a member of the Atlanta Civic Collaboratory. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Historic District Development Corporation. She is an active member of the Baha’i Community of Atlanta. Nasim holds an M.A. and coursework toward a Ph.D. in Sociology from Georgia State University and a B.A. in International Development from American University.
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