The story of this exhibit starts in the fall of 2022, when PAUSEr Kara Billings texted me to go to the dumpling restaurant near my house in Arlington, see the photos on the walls, and read the wall text. The powerful photos documenting real-life situations were taken by one of China’s top photojournalists, Tieliu Guo. It told his story, ending with, “And now I am making dumplings for you.” We communicated through an app, him speaking in Chinese and me in English. I told him he could have a show at my studio anytime he wanted. We would meet again in January 2024. He had a new idea. He showed me photos of Virginia—mostly landscapes. “Many people live in Virginia, but the love I have for this place is not like that of any other person,” the app translated. He told me that here, he sees “a beautiful social and natural environment coming together,” which was a new normal for him.

I first “met” Alex Sakes, a Columbia Pike resident, through Facebook. I became one of his thousands of friends, and followed his work. We met in person in 2023 at the launch of my book, Columbia Pike Recipes for Recovery. When he dropped in at this Studio last spring I was showing a Palestinian woman who lived down the street one of our exhibits. She shared how she took her elderly wheelchair-bound mother to protests in DC. I watched how Alex shared his experiences as a young Jewish American man who photographed protests. Sharing his youthful passion for justice, he said, “Since high school I have been photographing social upheaval in the streets documenting what people think is worth fighting for.” I asked him if he would like to show his photos at the Studio and he agreed.

Many photographers prefer to let their photos speak for themselves, and viewers will see what they see in these images based on their own experiences and aesthetics. But as the Studio is also a space for stories, I wanted to put Alex’s work next to Guo’s. To me these two men—from two ends of the earth, and walking two different journeys—somehow seem to tell the story of a love for the life we all deeply want to live.
~ Sushmita Mazumdar, curator, Studio PAUSE