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Deep Blue: Aimee and Brian Renew Their Vows © 2022 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved

In April of 2022, I received an email that changed my life. I had been accepted into the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin – Madison to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree. A few hours later, the very same night, I received a very unexpected call. My childhood friend, a person I’ve known and have been close with for nearly all of my life, had a brain tumor. This call came as an absolute shock that turned a happy day into a chaotic one, not just for myself but for my friend, Brian, and his entire family. I got myself to theRead More →

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Noctilucent Black; © 2023 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved

Earth, the pale blue dot. Our biosphere spaceship from which we explore the universe. Until we discover otherwise, Earth is home to all life as we know it. The stars have a way of reminding us just how little we know and how small we are relative to the immensity of the universe. Life on Earth could be nothing more than mere impressions upon the skin of an electron orbiting near the nucleus of an atom located within the spiral fringe of a molecule known as the Milky Way. Depending upon one’s perspective, life can make us feel like we are everything or nothing atRead More →

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Engstelig; Prairie du Chien, WI 2021; © 2022 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved; Things_Have_Changed_022_b

This short edit comes from chapter one of a four chapter photo documentary story depicting life during the pandemic across the United States. The body of work as a whole explores aspects of life and survival during the pandemic. The edit interplays with the visceral feeling of breathing while drawing inspiration from the fact that many victims of COVID-19 died from severe lung damage and the now infamous phrase “I can’t breathe” uttered by George Floyd while police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota slowly murdered him over a period of nearly 9 minutes while face down in a street. Each chapter takes its name from aRead More →

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Climate Strike; Madison, WI 2019; © 2020 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved; VoTP_118

Voice of The People is a look at more than a decade of protests, marches and actions in the U.S. from 2009-current. I was raised by a predominantly Republican and Catholic family. Growing up, the children in my family were often not allowed to be present during political conversations or news broadcasts. We never discussed or were told about the historic protests, rallies, and marches that helped shaped our home country, the United States. In short, we were not permitted to be informed until we were of voting age at which point we stumbled out into the world largely uneducated about our government or theRead More →

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Pieta, Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help; Champion, WI 2016; © 2016 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved; JH_Reconciliation_18

In this autobiographical story my intent is to come to terms with and acknowledge the hidden scars of my past. Childhood was not accompanied by the usual troubles of youth. I was born to a poor Catholic family that never seemed to settle for very long. The first of my many nomadic changes happened just a few months after my birth. My parents moved from Oregon to Wisconsin and in the process became stranded for several days on a highway in the openness of the American west. They were ill prepared for the trip, and their old Jeep Scout broke down in the middle ofRead More →

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Moustache Cat; New Franken, WI 2014; © 2021 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved; MFF_188

I use my camera to open a dialog between myself and my subjects in order to form relationships with and to learn more about the people I meet. My usual topics revolve around central themes of social discord, cultural exploration, and personal experiences. In this project, I approached my subjects in much the same way. However, unlike my usual subjects, this time I formed a relationship with a colony of feral cats in my own backyard. For years I noticed these cats had become a recurring subject in my other bodies of work. In early 2014 I signed up for Instagram and began sharing imagesRead More →

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LeAundra, 2012; © 2020 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved

Seeds of Hope began in 2010 as a joint project of the Green Bay Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, United Way, and several other organizations. Seeds of Hope has two iterations, the first was started in 2010 when people who were homeless and live in poverty in the great Green Bay, Wisconsin area were given cameras to photograph their perspective on poverty. The show opened near the end of 2010 at the Neville Public Museum and has since become a traveling exhibition. I came on-board during the second iteration of the project in 2012. In this version the photographers were area youth ranging in age fromRead More →

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Occupy Chicago; Chicago, IL 2011-2012; © 2020 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved; VoTP_074

Occupy Chicago Part of the Occupy Movement that swept the country in 2011 after Occupy Wall Street began in New York City. Protests focused on corporate greed and self-interested corporate influence within Government. Occupy Chicago positioned themselves in the heart of Chicago’s financial center, on the corner beside Bank of America (formerly the Continental Illinois building, origin of the term “Too big to fail”), and across the street from the Federal Reserve and Chicago Board of Trade. Protestors occupied this corner day and night, no matter the weather and marches/demonstrations happened regularly. Just prior to a NATO and G8 summit in the city in 2012,Read More →

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Wisconsin Workers Rights Protest; Madison, WI 2011 (Children of Solidarity); © 2020 Jason Houge, All Rights Reserved; VoTP_021

Who are the Children of Solidarity? These are the Millennial youth who stood in solidarity with their parents during the 2011 Wisconsin Worker’s Rights Protests that took place at the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin. During this time, Wisconsin Republicans, lead by Governor Scott Walker, proposed a very unpopular “Budget Repair Bill” that would ultimately diminish collective bargaining rights for public workers. In an attempt to prevent the vote, 14 Democrat Senators fled the state. Meanwhile tens-of-thousands of people physically occupied the capitol building in protest. In response, state Republicans attempted to have these Senators arrested and returned to the state. Inspired by these 14Read More →