Genevieve Waller
2026 Aurora Workspace Residency


 
 

Building on her previous camera-less photography works focused on environmental issues in outer space and the ethics of nuclear science in the American West, Genevieve Waller plans to spend her 2026 Aurora Workspace Residency in the darkroom making 11 x 14 photograms depicting species of plant life that mix up binary gender categories, reproduce asexually or non-normatively, and defy standard notions of natural heteronormativity. Waller is interested in how silver gelatin photograms made in the darkroom can be adapted to take on some of the characteristics normally associated with botanical illustrations, such as showing dissections and individual components of plants, different stages in the growth cycle of a plant species, and various kinds of texts inserted for labeling and diagrams.

Waller writes of her residency, “With the set-aside time and facilities at Aurora PhotoCenter, I will be able to design and produce a number of photograms in this series, which I hope to exhibit. I see this project as important in the way it highlights the queerness of botanical life as the norm, as well as an intervention into the history of photograms of plant specimens that artists have been making since the 1840s.”

Genevieve Waller holds a B.A. in art history from Wichita State University, an M.F.A. in photography and art history from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and an M.A. in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. She currently lives in Aurora, Colorado, where she is the founder and editor of the art journal "DARIA: Denver Art Review, Inquiry, and Analysis" (in print three times per year and online at dariamag.com), which documents and promotes the visual art scene in the Colorado Front Range. In her art practice, she works primarily with camera-less photography, installation, and sculpture, investigating the connections between abstraction, decoration, humor, and LGBTQ+ culture.

Genevieve has exhibited her work in solo and group shows at venues ranging from the Center for Visual Arts in Denver and the Galesburg Civic Arts Center in Galesburg, Illinois to the Bowling Green State University Bowen-Thompson Art Gallery in Bowling Green, Ohio and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina. She has participated in artist residencies at Soaring Gardens in Laceyville, Pennsylvania; the Agate Fossil Beds National Park in Harrison, Nebraska; Penland School of Craft in Spruce Pine, North Carolina; Open AIR Montana in Missoula; the Jentel Foundation in Banner, Wyoming; the Red Barn Studio Museum in Lindsborg, Kansas; and the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, New York, among others. She has received awards, fellowships, and grants from institutions such as the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Denver Arts & Venues, and the Susan B. Anthony Institute, and was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant for research in Berlin, Germany on the history of camera-less photography in Europe.

The Aurora Workspace Residency offers a two-week intensive work period for experimentation, research, and development of new or ongoing projects. Read about previous Aurora Workspace Residents: Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Jamila Martin, and Cali M. Banks.

This project is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Aurora Project Residency would not be possible without the following partnership:

Pending scheduling, the resident will stay at CAMi as part of a continuing program for visiting artists staying and working at the CAMi campus all year round. Aurora PhotoCenter thanks CAMi for its generous support of this residency.