Susan Ciriclio

Ciriclio was born in 1946[3] in New York City,[4] grew up in Westchester County, New York and later moved to Phoenix, Arizona. While she was a student at Phoenix College, she worked as a dispatcher and crime scene photographer for the Phoenix Police Department.[2]

She received an A.A. from Phoenix College in 1969, a B.F.A. from California College of Arts and Crafts in 1972, and a M.F.A. from Mills College in 1974.

Early in her teaching career, Ciriclio was an instructor in photography at Chabot College and San Francisco Art Institute. Ciriclio was chair of CCA's photography program from 1988—1992, and 1999—2008. In addition to her work as a professor of photography at California College of the Arts, she also served as interim Vice President for Academic Affairs from 1986-1987 and as Vice President for Academic Affairs from 1989-1992. During her time in the position, Ciriclio made great progress in budget planning and faculty governance.

Aside from her work as a photography educator and academic administrator, Ciriclio also served on the board of directors at San Francisco Camerawork Gallery from 1983-1986.[5][6]

In 1979, Ciriclio was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.[7]

Ciriclio's map projects explore the chronicling of place; combining large scale map replicas with thousands of detail photographs of an area, in works that function both sculpturally and temporally.[8]

Ciriclio cites her day to day surroundings as inspiration in her photographic practice; she searches out visual texture in the ordinariness[8] of her suburban[9] environment and neighborhood, documenting the visual landscape over time and compiling photographs into map works and book works.[3]

Ciriclio's piece, "Neighborhood" was exhibited in 1977 as part of the group show San Francisco/Los Angeles/New York held at the San Francisco Art Institute[8] and in 1980 as a solo exhibition at the University of California, Davis Memorial Union Art Gallery.[10] The ordinariness of her suburban neighborhood, which she photographed for the piece, had a universal quality that viewers responded to identifying it was their neighborhood; whether that was in San Francisco, Salt Lake City or Atlanta. Hal Fischer described Ciriclio's piece as "sympathetic to the New Topographics genre".[1]

Another of Ciriclio's works, "Haddon Roadwork" was featured as part of a group exhibition at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia in 1985 when it was known as 1708 East Main. Similar to Ciriclio's "Neighborhood", "Haddon Roadwork" also involved creating a map with pictures she had taken of houses along the streets of her neighborhood. As Mitchell Kahan wrote in Art Papers, "There is neither an aestheticized quality to them nor the cool detached aura of scientific documentation. They are as off hand and casual as a realtor's handbook".[11]

Ciriclio’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions.

Ciriclio's work is held in many permanent collections including:

• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco[4]
• Oakland Museum, Oakland[4]
• Barnsdall Collection, Los Angeles[4]
• Seibu Museum, Tokyo[4]
• Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Yamanashi, Japan[4]
• Mills College, Oakland[4]

• "Sue Ciriclio Interview"