The Art of Building
As part of The Art of Building, 1906 Group’s Photographer-in-Residence spends a year or two visiting job sites, offices, and manufacturing facilities across the United States within 1906 Group’s portfolio, capturing the art of building through photography. The program seeks to highlight the “champions” – the craft workers - who deliver the built environment. Individually and collectively, these craft workers are responsible for the monumental efforts required to build our nation’s infrastructure. Their work deserves to be documented. To learn more about The Art of Building, please visit The Art of Building website or email info@1906group.com.
Current PhotographerS-in-Residence
Aleksey Kondratyev
Aleksey Kondratyev is an artist originally from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan whose work examines the intersection of labor, industry, and identity. Kondratyev received his BFA from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan in 2014 and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. His work has been exhibited at the SFO Museum at the San Francisco International Airport, California; the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, Illinois; Red Hook Labs in Brooklyn, New York; Blue Sky: the Oregon Center for Photographic Arts in Portland; the Neue Schule für Fotografie in Berlin, Germany; the Berlin Center for Contemporary Art, Germany; the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, Italy; Les Rencontres d’Arles in France; and the Galleria Foto-Forum in Bolzano, Italy. Kondratyev’s work has been published in The Financial Times, CNN, National Geographic, The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Vogue Italia, Huffington Post, the Harvard Business Review, Calvert Journal, and the British Journal of Photography. He lives in Los Angeles.
Jennifer VanSteenburgh
Jennifer VanSteenburgh is a photographer from Richmond, Virginia and the most recent addition to The Art of Building program. VanSteenburgh graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with her B.F.A. in Photography and Film in 2016. Seh began her career as a photographer for a fashion and lifestlye brand based in Richmond. In 2018, she took a brief hiatus from photography to be a high school Fine Arts Teacher. She returned full-time to photography in 2021 in a variety of freelance roles. As the daughter of a commercial electrician, Jennifer has a passion for the built environment and the process through which it is created. Jennifer spent countless hours on the jobsite with her father which influenced her curiosity and desire to learn and, now photograph, how things come to be.
Past Photographers-in-Residence
Harry Griffin III
Harry Griffin III was born and raised in South Florida. He stumbled into photography in community college after taking a class while a graphic design major. He quickly fell in love with the medium and transferred to California College of the Arts in Oakland, California. Upon receiving his BFA, he moved to New York City and lived there until 2015, when he was accepted into the Yale School of Art to pursue his MFA in Photography. After Yale, Harry was accepted as the Photographer-in-Residence at the 1906 Group, which sent him to 100 construction sites throughout the United States. His accumulation of more than 65,000 photographs culminated in an exhibition at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Harry is currently an adjunct professor of Digital Photography at George Mason University.
Dominique Muñoz
Dominique Muñoz received his BFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015. In 2016, he became 1906 Group’s first Photographer-in-Residence. With his new role, he traveled around the country shedding light on the men and women who work so diligently on construction sites. This experience landed Muñoz a solo exhibition at the National Building Museum in 2017. Muñoz is currently the in-house photographer for Framebridge based in Washington, DC.