Exhibition Details
The International Center of Photography (ICP) is proud to present Instead, I spin fantasies, an exhibition by Naima Green that grapples with the concept of pregnancy through constructed self-portraits, landscapes and still-lifes—blurring the line between documentary and performance. Green probes the conventional expectations and representational tropes of motherhood, while also creating an expanded space for considering the experience of pregnancy in America.
Curated by Guest Curator Elisabeth Sherman, Instead, I spin fantasies brings together dozens of new works, including photographs printed using the historical technologies of albumen and lumen printing processes, along with a site-specific vinyl installation that utilizes the architecture of ICP’s third floor galleries.
Curated by Guest Curator Elisabeth Sherman, Instead, I spin fantasies brings together dozens of new works, including photographs printed using the historical technologies of albumen and lumen printing processes, along with a site-specific vinyl installation that utilizes the architecture of ICP’s third floor galleries.
Artist Details
Naima Green is an artist and educator who pictures individuals and communities to document their vibrant relationships to place and pleasure. She engages with various photographic forms, sound, and experimental film. Throughout her collaborative practice, Green accesses and prioritizes the nature of intimacy, safety, and self-recognition.
Often working in lush and watery environments, she presents windows into multidimensional experiences of seawater and its pathways: beauty, buoyancy, overwhelm, and submersion. Oral and written histories are critical to her process; by synthesizing archival research with outreach and conversation with current sitters, she frames picture-making as a continuum and her still images as kinetic, living histories.
Often working in lush and watery environments, she presents windows into multidimensional experiences of seawater and its pathways: beauty, buoyancy, overwhelm, and submersion. Oral and written histories are critical to her process; by synthesizing archival research with outreach and conversation with current sitters, she frames picture-making as a continuum and her still images as kinetic, living histories.
Location
International Center of Photography
79 Essex Street
New York, NY 10002
Image: Naima Green, half on a baby (DonChristian), 2025 / courtesy of International Center of Photography

