Silences by MG Vander Elst

It began with a name I didn’t recognize, scribbled in a book that once belonged to my grandfather. That small discovery unraveled the hidden history of my grandmother, a history I was never meant to know. Her absence profoundly shaped my father’s life and ultimately led to his suicide, setting events into motion that still reverberate today.

My search took me across continents, revealing a lineage buried in silence and shaped by war, exile, and loss. This work merges images of the past and the present to explore my father’s history and connect with the grandmother I never knew.

The reconstructed narrative honors her memory, reshapes everything I believed about my father, and offers a new lens through which to understand how these revelations have reshaped not only my family’s story, but my own, and give voice to what was left unsaid.

When I Was Six Years Old© MG Vander Elst

(Un)disclosed © MG Vander Elst

Bridal Bouquet © MG Vander Elst

Looking for Pauline © MG Vander Elst

MG Vander Elst
MG Vander Elst is a fine art photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Raised in Antwerp, Belgium, she was immersed in art from an early age, regularly visiting the Rubens house, studying the Dutch Masters, and sharing her parents’ love for Modern Art.

Her journey in photography began while working as an au pair abroad, when she enrolled in an evening class. A pivotal moment occurred as she photographed one of the girls under her care, an image that captured a profound intimacy and left an indelible mark. That moment continues to drive her creative expression.

Vander Elst earned a Certificate in Photography from the Portfolio Center in Atlanta in 1990. She then moved to NYC, where she worked as an assistant to photographer David Stewart before establishing her own freelance portrait business. Over time, her work evolved to include still life, abstract, and landscape photography. Her aesthetic continues to be shaped by the light, gesture, and intimacy of the Dutch Masters, along with the restraint and clarity of modernist sensibilities.

Her still life images gained national recognition with group exhibitions in Dallas, NYC, and Vermont, curated by notable figures such as Aline Smithson, Debra Klomp Ching, and Anne Jabstrab. Several of these images received juror selections and honorable mentions. Her recent work has been featured in F-Stop Magazine, AAP Magazine, and Float Magazine.

In spring 2024, Vander Elst presented her second solo exhibition “(Un)veiled”, in Brooklyn. The show featured flower imagery on paper and silk, exploring themes of vulnerability and emotional truth, revealing beauty in flaws and imperfections that echo her own experiences.

In October, she attended her first residency at MASS MoCA, where she deepened her engagement with personal narrative and memory.

Now based at TI Arts Studios in Brooklyn, Vander Elst participates in Gowanus Open Studios each fall. She lives nearby with her husband and two sons.
www.mgvanderelst.com
@mgvanderelst_images
All About MG Vander Elst

When I Was Six Years Old II © MG Vander Elst

Untitled © MG Vander Elst

Sons © MG Vander Elst

Looking for Pauline II © MG Vander Elst

Fracture © MG Vander Elst

The Past is not dead its not even Past © MG Vander Elst

Todd Hido: Intimate Distance, Over Thirty Years of Photographs, A Chronological Album

By Todd Hido

Publisher : Aperture

2025 | 320 pages

An expanded chronology charting Todd Hido's career, with ten years of new work.

Well known for his photography of landscapes and suburban housing, and for his use of detail and luminous color, acclaimed American photographer Todd Hido casts a distinctly cinematic eye across all that he photographs, digging deep into his memory and imagination for inspiration. Newly revised and expanded, Intimate Distance: Over Thirty Years of Photographs, A Chronological Album includes ten years of new work since the book's first publication, including breathtaking new images from his travels to Iceland, Norway, and Japan, where he brings both a familiar eye and an expansive new vision.

Though Hido has published many smaller monographs of individual bodies of work, this gathers his most iconic images, along with many unpublished works to provide the most complete and comprehensive monograph charting his career. The book is organized chronologically, showing how his series overlap in exciting ways. David Campany introduces the work and looks at the kind of cinematic spectatorship the work demands. And Katya Tylevich muses on the making of each of Hido's major monographs, "The photographs lead as far as human-made roads go. They reach the periphery of utility wires, footprints, and paths already taken." From exterior to interior, surface observations to subconscious investigations, from landscapes to nudes, from America and beyond, this midcareer collection reveals how his unique focus has developed and shifted over time, yet the tension between distance and intimacy remains.

All About Todd Hido

Nick Brandt: The Echo of Our Voices: The Day May Break, Chapter Four

By Nick Brandt

Publisher : Skira

2025 | 128 pages

The fourth chapter of the celebrated series The Day May Break by the renowned photographer Nick Brandt, featuring Syrian refugee families, displaced by climate change in water-scarce Jordan

This is the fourth chapter of The Day May Break, photographer Nick Brandt's global series portraying people and animals impacted by climate change and environmental degradation. The series was photographed in Jordan, one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. It features rural Syrian refugee families currently living there, whose lives have been seriously impacted by droughts intensified by climate change. Living lives of continuous displacement, they are forced to move their homes up to several times a year, moving to where there is available agricultural work, to wherever there has been sufficient rainfall to enable crops to grow. The photographs show the families' connection and strength in the face of adversity, that when all else is lost you still have each other. The boxes on which the families gather aim skyward, pedestals for those in our society that are typically unseen and unheard.

All About Nick Brandt

Ed Kashi: A Period in Time: Looking Back while Moving Forward, 1977-2022

By Ed Kashi

Publisher : Briscoe Center for American History

2025 | 344 pages

Photographer Ed Kashi’s passion is long-term documentary projects that immerse him in issues that need attention or people’s lives whose struggles warrant concern. He has had a lengthy and varied career with National Geographic and other major magazines, traveling around the world to tell visual stories.

Kashi’s archive, now housed at the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, houses many of his personal memories and the experiences attached to the creation of those images. More than a simple repository of images, the archive is a growing, thriving, and continually evolving organism, a living library with immense value.

Through his photography, Kashi has had an intimate, front-row seat to witness and record major events in history. His work has been a passport to worlds unseen, unveiling issues that need illumination, documenting history in the making, and capturing the human experience and the many awe-inspiring places in our fragile world. A Period in Time is a testimony to some of Kashi’s most memorable stories—people he has been privileged to observe and learn from and the places and narratives that have shaped his life, all captured one moment at a time.

All About Ed Kashi

Critical Photojournalism: Contemporary Ethics and Practices

By Tara Pixley, Judy Walgren

Publisher : ‎ Routledge

2025 | 226 pages

An essential introduction to the complexities of visual representation, this book offers a critical new framework for understanding and practicing photojournalism in a global digital context.

Critical Photojournalism guides readers through a variety of ethical, technical and business skills, plus the mental health, self-care and safety considerations necessary to thrive in the field. Drawing on their extensive industry and teaching experience, the authors provide real-world advice on how to navigate the demands of the profession while addressing the impact that photojournalism has on society and ways that photojournalists can mitigate harm. Consideration is given to understanding and disrupting implicit bias and power structures in newsrooms, as well as issues around access, working in breaking news environments and balancing informed consent with varying media laws around the world. In accessible language, this book highlights the importance of collaboration and community engagement in contemporary photojournalism and encourages students to adopt a decolonial approach to their work. Readers will learn to balance the needs for accuracy and thoughtfulness with the priorities of a global, social-media-engaged audience.

This is a key textbook for those seeking a nuanced introduction to visual journalism and/or a fresh approach to their craft. This book is supported by a website which can be accessed at www.criticalphotojournalism.com. The website includes a full-length bonus chapter on video and photojournalism, interviews with professional visual journalists, further tips and tools, and a glossary of key terms.

Silences by MG Vander Elst

All About MG Vander Elst

Selected Books