Know Hope, Know Dreams
By Ellen Friedlander
We are ever-connected with nature, with one another and most importantly with our future generations. “Know Hope, Know Dreams” is a video composition of landscape photographs interwoven with emotionally charged portraits conveying the necessity of global compassion and collective actions for our future. I seek to draw attention to the power within each of us to take intentional positive actions toward respecting ourselves, humankind and our natural world. One cannot exist without the other. We must do this together, not in isolation. Each person in our global community is connected: We all need water. We all need food. We all need shelter. We all need nature to release our personal traumas and to sustain life. We all need to remember that each one of us is a reflection of each other, and when there is no hope or no dreams, nature will cry with us. We all need to work together to Know Hope, Know Dreams.
About the Artist
Ellen Friedlander is a Los Angeles-based fine art and documentary artist who uses a variety of in-camera and post processing techniques to reveal the unpredictable, idiosyncratic, inscrutable nature of the human condition. Her work has been most influenced by 20th century street photographers. Their iconic photographs inspired her from the age of 16 to take to the city streets across the United States and Hong Kong where she has lived. She holds a BFA in Art with a Minor in Photography from Ithaca College and a MA in Mass Communications with an emphasis in Advertising from the University of Florida, Gainesville. Friedlander has exhibited her work internationally, including the United Jewish Congregation in Hong Kong, Saint Xaiver University in Chicago, London and various galleries in Los Angeles and Crakow, Poland. She has been featured in Lenscratch, The Hand Magazine, and as guest artist on The Candid Frame podcast, Episode #499. Her work was included in the Winter 2019 Focus PhotoLA Top 20 and her piece titled Hiding IV was the winner and cover photograph for APA-LA OFF THE CLOCK Curated Personal Photography Exhibition 2020. During March-April, 2021, three of Friedlander’s photographs from her "Betrayal” series were in a group show at Austin Desmond Fine Art in London, as well as having her first solo show at The Photographer's Eye Gallery in Escondido, CA in which she exhibited her "Extended Frame™" body of work.