Portfolios: |
Yasmine Soiffer was born in Sri Lanka, and, as the child of diplomats, called Japan, Virginia, Paris, and Ivory Coast home by the time she settled in New York City. She often found herself in situations where she did not share a language with her contemporaries. Instead, Yasmine continuously sought ways of spanning the communication divide by learning French and Japanese until, ultimately, she found herself entranced with visual communication. Her academic pursuit of photography began during her senior year at Barnard College, Columbia University, under the tutelage of Thomas Roma, who continues to be a major influence. This coursework fashioned the backbone of her goals in photography: to create images that tell a story, universally understood through visual language. She often finds herself returning to a question posed by Roma, “What is this picture about?”
Yasmine graduated with honors with a double major of English and French Literature and Translation. In one of her theses, for which she was awarded distinction, she analyzed the photographs of David Levinthal within the context of post-memorial art--art about the Holocaust made by the second generation, relying therefore not on memory but imagination. At Columbia University, she participated in several group shows and was encouraged when, in a travel photography competition, three of her four photographs were granted accolades.
Yasmine’s local communities inspire her. She often manipulates available light and found circumstances, and her work tends to focus on the atmosphere and emotions of a place. Series include Temple, about an historic synagogue that collapsed on the Lower East Side, and Disappearing Brooklyn, a visual exploration of a borough rapidly being absorbed by hungry Manhattan. Selections from Disappearing Brooklyn were exhibited as part of a group show at the Object Image Gallery in Fall 2006. Yasmine was a Winter 2006-07 Artist-in-Residence at Makor, a subsidiary of the 92nd Street Y. There, working with the theme of the urban landscape, she created her first staged series, The Secret Life Of..., and its companion piece, the true-life Interiors. Other recent endeavors include promotional materials for theatre productions and concerts, and commissioned portraits. Yasmine aspires to create an interaction between viewer and image, giving the viewer a passport to her world.
|
