Pao Houa Her: My grandfather turned into a tiger … and other illusions

Join the Aperture PhotoBook Club to discuss My grandfather turned into a tiger … and other illusions (Aperture, 2024). Photographer and 2023 Next Step Award Winner Pao Houa Her and Aperture’s executive director, Sarah Meister, will be joined by Jil Weinstock, executive director, Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York; Alex Lin, book designer; and past Next Step Award recipient Tommy Kha.

Her’s work draws inspiration from a myriad of sources: apocryphal family lore; portraits of the artist’s community and self; and reimagined landscapes, with Minnesota and Northern California standing in for Laos. The compelling and personal narratives are grounded in the traditions and contemporary metaphors of the Hmong diasporic community.

This virtual public program is free and open to all.

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The Aperture PhotoBook Club brings together a constellation of artists and individuals engaged with photobook-making for conversations that inform and inspire photo-loving audiences around the world.

Join the Club to receive news on upcoming gatherings and discounts on featured photobooks.

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Pao Houa Her (born in Laos, 1982) is a Hmong American visual artist based in Blaine, Minnesota. Her is an assistant professor in photography and moving images at the University of Minnesota. She received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2009 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2012. She has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, the McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship in 2016 and 2022, and completed a residency at LightWork, Syracuse, New York. She has had several solo exhibitions of her work, including Paj qaum ntuj / Flowers of the Sky (2022) at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, PHH Emplotment (2020) at the Or Gallery, Vancouver, and After the Fall of Hmong Teb Chaw (2019) at the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her work is held in public collections, including the Singapore Art Museum and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.