Nancy Farese Photography

Nancy Farese Photography Since its inception photography has been used as a tool for social change; to expose abuse, tell a story, and drive social action.

I work with NGOs to achieve that end, and to advertise their diverse missions for social betterment. I have enjoyed partnerships with such organizations as The International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, The Carter Center, Room to Read, Magic Bus India, Right to Play/USA, Internews, and the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center. I also do this work because my “camera can take me someplace I

otherwise don’t belong." I find myself in a village of weavers high in the Andes of Peru, watching a child learn to play in peace at The San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center, or sitting with a Ugandan woman entrepreneur in a hut on the banks of the Nile that floods every year and has no running water but remarkably she wears a clean white apron and smiles with pride as she tells me her story of success; I pinch myself often. I can’t run a weaving co-opt for 600 village weavers, and I can’t interpret the sandbox play of an abused child to understand her trauma, and her therapy, but I can see them through my lens. I can see the light drawing a line around the face of the genocide survivor telling her story in Rwanda. I can see the reflections of the kids playing soccer in the drizzle at a refugee camp in The West Bank. I can see the stories that bind our human experience, helping me to understand as much about myself as those that appear in my images.

The maps I’d relied on, technological, cultural, political, became unrecognizable…Honored to share that my photograph, A...
08/14/2026

The maps I’d relied on, technological, cultural, political, became unrecognizable…

Honored to share that my photograph, American Exceptionalism, has been selected for the 2026 International FL3TCH3R Exhibit: Social & Politically Engaged Art at Fischman Gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee.

After the exhibition’s future was uncertain following its disruption in 2024, Fischman Gallery stepped forward to ensure this important platform for artists addressing social and political issues could continue. The exhibition carries forward Fletcher Dyer’s belief that art can create meaningful, challenging dialogue.

About American Exceptionalism: Raised in Georgia on a story of America as a beacon of freedom and dignity, I watched that story unravel in 2025 as the political and social fabric tore in ways I never anticipated. This image, American Exceptionalism, is part of a larger installation, Mapping Dissonance: America 2025, A Visual Journal of an Extraordinary Year. It was a year when I turned inward, as the maps I’d relied on, technological, cultural, political, became unrecognizable. Drawing on the quilting traditions of my Southern upbringing, I began stitching together media fragments, erasures, and layered compositions into contemporary quilts that could hold ambiguity and rupture at once. The work is a record of attention, an act of looking closely rather than looking away, and a belief that naming what has broken is itself a step toward remembering who we came from. And beginning to ask… what happens next?

The International FL3TCH3R Exhibit: Social & Politically Engaged Art
August 7 – September 27, 2026
Fischman Gallery, Johnson City, Tennessee
Fischman Gallery

And this, with a nod to David Hockney “when the world is chaotic, collage emerges,” as it has for my art. This is old me...
08/07/2026

And this, with a nod to David Hockney “when the world is chaotic, collage emerges,” as it has for my art. This is old media/New York Times and new media/the Onion, and Inquiries are being halted, the justice department is leaking talent, and fearful Americans are stockpiling facts before the government comes to take them away. Which one of these things is a joke?

And this! Really leaning into the shadow, and the thread. This was photographed in Ibiza, Erling, July.
08/07/2026

And this! Really leaning into the shadow, and the thread. This was photographed in Ibiza, Erling, July.

Considering summer: One way to look at Northern Ireland. Crystal blue skies off the coast of Belfast.
08/07/2026

Considering summer: One way to look at Northern Ireland. Crystal blue skies off the coast of Belfast.

Scene at the beach: 4th of July in Spain!
07/04/2026

Scene at the beach: 4th of July in Spain!

Scene from Spain. Reading the reflection essay by in on the history of The American Dream. He calls this one of Americ...
07/03/2026

Scene from Spain.

Reading the reflection essay by in on the history of The American Dream. He calls this one of America’s greatest exports, establishing America historically as a place where “everyone looks you right in the eye – rich and poor shared a kind of dignity”.

Now, in our current chaos, “Gen Z wants basic stability and a debt - free life,“ and they are left wondering if the American dream is a nostalgic “fragment of language from another world“. His students at Bard College ask him, what wasn’t exactly, and where did it go? “Is the American dream delivery on demand, or the time to cook for yourself?”

This is both a brilliant and exciting time to be asking ourselves this question.

Hsu concludes, perhaps “the collective spirit of self improvement was symbolize best not by the nation’s wealth, but by the reading room at the Library of Congress, open to rich and poor alike.”

I’m grateful for deep thinking like this, and I hold so tight to these threads of long perspective and optimism, insisting that we can do better.
… And we’re not giving up yet.

I am thrilled to have this image as a finalist in the Women Street Photographers exhibition in Menorca, Spain, during Ra...
07/02/2026

I am thrilled to have this image as a finalist in the Women Street Photographers exhibition in Menorca, Spain, during Raw Photofest 2026.

This image is part of a new project, Mapping Dissonance: America 2025 where I’m applying my visual practice to making sense of, mapping, a shifting America. It examines politics, American identity, and shifting roles of women. Motherhood is no longer a default, it’s a deliberate and active choice, leaving women to wrestle with an urgent dilemma – how do you separate a woman’s worth from her choice to have a child?

I don’t know, just random pretty light in New York, in June.
06/10/2026

I don’t know, just random pretty light in New York, in June.

6s and 7s, and almost 60 years apart.Happy Summer 💥
06/01/2026

6s and 7s, and almost 60 years apart.
Happy Summer 💥

Title: Trust Was Once an American Superpower Accepted! I am honored to participate with 2 pieces in an upcoming show at...
05/21/2026

Title: Trust Was Once an American Superpower
Accepted! I am honored to participate with 2 pieces in an upcoming show at the New Orleans Photo Alliance in collaboration with Kolaj Institute - a much admired organization representing all things collage. As my work has ventured into political collage, I have been particularly inspired by the place that they hold in this art.

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