EKPHRASIS WORKSHOP WITH NAIMA GREEN
KEEP TOUCHING
January ISL Visiting Artist Call & Workshop: Open to the Public
Thurs January 15th 2026 • 7-8:30 PM EST • Sliding Scale $150-215
Students enrolled in Jan 2026 ISL are automatically enrolled
Poet Aracelis Girmay writes, "Listen to me. I am telling you / a true thing. This is the only kingdom. / The kingdom of touching; / the touches of the disappearing, things." In Naima Green's latest show at the International Center of Photography, Instead, I Spin Fantasies, a photograph from a wedding shows multiple hands embracing over a long dinner table. With equal welcome and command, the photograph is titled Keep Touching. At the heart of Naima Green's photography is a charged and expansive intimacy. Through her work we are submerged in an unwavering affection for self, body, chosen family, and the intense transportive possibilities of color. Your host, ISL founder Shira Erlichman, will lead an ekphrasis workshop prompted by Green's electrifying work. For the first time ever, we are opening an ISL session's visiting artist event to the public. Join January ISL participants for a presentation of Green's work, a Q&A, and a generative workshop where we write poems based on Green's photographs. Together we'll explore the collisions between not only visual art and poetry, but the private self and the public self, fantasy and reality, and the paradoxes of marking the impermanent, of "touching...the disappearing."
​​​​Naima Green’s artwork has been exhibited at ICA VCU, Baxter Street CCNY, Fotografiska New York, Smart Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, International Center of Photography, Houston Center for Photography, Bronx Museum, BRIC, Ltd Los Angeles, Gallery 102, Gracie Mansion Conservancy, Shoot the Lobster, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Arsenal Gallery. She’s participated in artist residencies at Recess, Mass MoCA, Pocoapoco, Bronx Museum, Vermont Studio Center, and is a recipient of the Myers Art Prize at Columbia University.
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Her works are in the collections of Barnard College Library, Decker Library at MICA, Fleet Library at RISD, High Musuem, Hessel Museum, International Center of Photography Library, Leslie-Lohman Museum, MoMA Library, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Hirsch Library, National Gallery of Art, Olin Library, Cornell University, Smart Museum of Art, Teachers College, Columbia University.
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Green earned an MFA from Bard College, where she was awarded the Director’s Fellowship, an MA in Art & Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she was awarded a Merit Scholarship, and a BA in Urban Studies & Sociology from Barnard College.
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She was the Harnish Visiting Artist and Lecturer in Photography at Smith College from 2021 to 2023 and currently teaches in the Creative Practices program at the International Center of Photography and in New York City Public Schools.
Sign up for KEEP TOUCHING: Ekphrasis Workshop with Naima Green
Students enrolled in January 2026 ISL session are automatically enrolled in this workshop.
For those wanting to join the event: payment can be made through Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle.
Sliding scale $150-215. Send us an email and we'll guide you through next steps!