Jan. 20, World-Renowned Photographer Sylvia Plachy to Speak at UAB

World-renowned photographer Sylvia Plachy will present a free, public lecture at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20 in the UAB Spencer Honors House, 1190 10th Ave. South. A book-signing event will follow the lecture. The event is sponsored by the UAB Department of English. For more information, contact UAB Associate Professor of English Cynthia Ryan, Ph.D., at cynryan@uab.edu or 934-8600.

January 5, 2010

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - World-renowned photographer Sylvia Plachy will present a free, public lecture at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20 in the UAB Spencer Honors House, 1190 10th Ave. South. A book-signing event will follow the lecture. The event is sponsored by the UAB Department of English. For more information, contact UAB Associate Professor of English Cynthia Ryan, Ph.D., at cynryan@uab.edu or 934-8600.

Plachy, a native of Budapest, Hungary, is best known for her photos in the Village Voice, and her work also has appeared in publications including The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, People, New York Magazine among others. Her son, the Oscar award-winning actor Adrien Brody, has been the subject of several of her photographs in past years.

Plachy will be in Birmingham for a photo shoot for an article Ryan is writing for the American Association for Cancer Research publication CR: CollaborationsàResults. The article focuses on the plight of the homeless suffering from advanced stages of cancer and the assistance offered to them by Church of the Reconciler in downtown Birmingham. Ryan, who is a two-time breast-cancer survivor, has written many magazine articles and essays on the media's coverage of the disease.

Plachy's work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Houston Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and High Museum, among others. She has had one-person shows at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Queens Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and in galleries in New York, Budapest, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Tokyo, Manchester, Arles, Madrid, Perpingnon and Pingyau.

Her books include Signs and Relics; Red Light; Unguided Tour, which received the Infinity Award for best publication; and Self Portrait with Cows Going Home. Her latest books are Out of the Corner of My Eye: De Reojo and Goings on About Town.

Plachy is a Guggenheim fellow and a recipient of the Lucie Award for photography.

About UAB

Known for its innovative and interdisciplinary approach to education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is an internationally renowned research university and academic medical center and the state of Alabama's largest employer. For more information, please visit www.uab.edu.