Being a print cooperative studio, Zygote champions collaboration. What many might not know is that Zygote also  welcomes curatorial proposals–providing opportunities for additional voices to have a say in what’s on the walls of the  gallery. Under the direction of executive director Liz Maugans, the programming committee (made up of board members) meets to discuss and chart out the direction and exhibition possibilities, working a calendar year in advance.

Up next on our gallery walls is The Digital Divide, curated by Bruce Edwards, opening January 11, 2013. No stranger to working with and at Zygote Press, Edwards has been an artist member for nearly 15 years, and has worked on the  Programming Committee as one of his roles on the Board of Trustees for the last 4 years.

Each year the programming committee leaves some space on the gallery calendar, inviting the opportunity for guest  curators to propose independently organized shows. Bruce remembers well one such programming meeting–nearly a  year ago–when the committee was looking at the open dates for the year ahead, and brainstorming exhibition ideas  around the table. Bruce proposed The Digital Divide. He laughs when he retells the circumstances of the meeting: it was  quickly decided the exhibition would be a go, and immediately settled that he would be the curator. Zygote operates  with a mindset of an organization jointly owned by those who use its facilities and govern it’s growth, and is a place that  encourages the dynamic voices of its community to be heard, and in this case, seen on its gallery walls.

With Zygote having just inherited an oversized digital printer, Bruce saw an immediate connection to the studio’s  development of digital output capabilities. He felt the exhibition would fit nicely within Zygote’s mission, considering photography as a medium with a similar approach to the multiple, and he looked at the exhibition as an opportunity to  out reach to a slightly broader community.

“The show asks several artists that survived the divide to show work that spans the practice of film and digital  production, and asks how this evolution in photography influenced the path of their work,” Edwards wrote. In The  Digital Divide, you’ll find both the work and written experiences from artists that have bridged the divide, transitioning  from film to digital, including: Robert Banks, Preston Buchtel, Bruce Checefsky, Lori Kella, Michael Loderstedt, and Jerry Mann.