On an isolated peninsula at the far edge of New York City there lives a close-knit community of impoverished social outcasts who, bearing the stigma of mental illness and the perception of moral turpitude, have found themselves exiled to a forgotten corner of Queens known as THE LAST STOP ? ROCKAWAY PARK.
Juliana Beasley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the USA in 1967.
She graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in New York in 1990. She started her photographic career as a printer for Annie Liebowitz. She followed this up working as a freelance photographer, covering the city's nightlife for the Village Voice. In 1997, she produced a long term photographic project on child labor in Albania, later printed in The Christian Science Monitor.
In 2003, powerHouse Books published Lapdancer, an intimate photographic and text account of the world of strip clubs. In 2004, she worked with the non-profit organization Jesuit Rehabilitation Services, photographing the rehabilitation of landmine victims in Cambodia.
In the Fall of 2005, Beasley had her first one-woman show at Galleri Kontrast in Stockholm, Sweden. This was followed by winning places in juried shows at The Camera Club of NYC, curated by Antonin Kratochvil, The Jen Bekman Gallery in NYC, 3rd Ward Gallery in NYC, and The Perkins Art Center of New Jersey. In July 2007, she won an award from the competition with the organization Women in Photography.
Beasley was also nominated for the International Center of Photography?s prestigious Infinity Award in 2007 in the category of outstanding photojournalism and won best participant in the portfolio reviews in the Photo Biennale in Thessaloniki, Greece 2007. In July 2007, she won one an award from the Women in Photography.
Beasley is presently working on a new book entitled, ?Last Stop: Rockaway Park? about the desperate lives of the mentally ill and alcoholics living in a beachfront neighborhood in New York City. The book will be published in the spring/summer season of 2008 with powerHouse Books.
In 2007, her work was displayed in the Polish Photo Festival in Lodz and at the Promenades des Vendomes in France. In September of 2007, her works from both ?Lapdancer? and ?Last Stop: Rockaway Park? will be at the group show at the Mannheim/Heidelberg Festival entitled ?Reality Crossings?.
Her work is represented by Contact Press Images and the pH on-line gallery. She is based in Jersey City, New Jersey.
