In celebration of our current show, PHOBIAS, join us for a conversation with photographers Billy Hickey and Jaina Cipriano about fear, processing it through art, and creating spaces where other people can do the same.
Hickey and Cipriano will speak from 7-8PM, with mingling before and after the conversation.
Photo by Kay Hurley
Billy Hickey is a nature photographer from Massachusetts. He has spent most of his life afraid of spiders and photos of their faces.
In his personal work Billy makes stories about the intersections of the natural and human worlds covering topics such as falconry, light pollution, fireflies, and goats. Billy’s passion is learning about nature and sharing its wonders through photography with the hope to educate and inspire. In 2020 he graduated from the International Center of Photography and his project “How We Were” won first place in Lensculture’s Black and White Photography Awards. Billy’s work has been featured in the Eastern Mass. Hawkwatch’s Newsletter, The Wall Street Journal, STAT News, and the New York Times. From Spring 2023 until Spring 2024, he was an Artist-in-Residence at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA. During this time Billy made An Uncommon Inheritance which looks at the ecosystem formed in the Cemetery that is shared by human, animals, plant, and fungus alike. He is based in Watertown, Massachusetts, available for assignments around New England.
Jaina Cipriano is a photographer, filmmaker, and experiential designer whose work delves into the emotional complexities of healing and explores ways to face our fears. Through her immersive worlds, she invites viewers to reconnect with their neglected inner child, using explosive colors, elements of elevated play, and a dynamic interplay of light and dark to evoke deep, unspoken emotions.
Jaina’s photographic works are fabricated by hand in her Lowell studio. Working with Jaina is often described as cathartic and playful. She studied at the New England School of Photography and The Griffin Museum. She has shown at Leica Gallery Boston, The Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston University and Kingston Gallery, among others. Her work has been published over 200 times and selected for the top 200 of Critical Mass 2024.
As a filmmaker, Jaina writes and directs award-winning short films that navigate the challenging path of healing. Her second short film, Trauma Bond, a dreamy coming-of-age thriller that explores the allure of quick fixes for deep wounds, won the grand prize at the Lonely Seal International Film Festival. She was selected for Stowe Writers Retreat 2025 for her feature film Heaven Can’t Be Better Than This. Her upcoming short film Actualization is the first narrative short film to spread awareness about the emetophobia, the crippling fear of vomiting.
Jaina’s immersive experience What Are You Afraid Of, blended ritual with performance for a solo experience through facing fears, debuted at Bow Market in 2026 to over 20 participants. Her upcoming experience, Odd One is about memory and empathy.
Jaina is the owner of the Finding Bright Film Festival (previously known as the Arlington International Film Festival) and the founder of Bright Nite Studios, a design company building narrative experiences based in Lowell, MA. She has collaborated with GRRL HAUS, Boston Art Review, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and was a Boston Fellow for the MassArt Creative Business Incubator. Jaina was a finalist in EforAll Merrimack Valley in 2022 and a 2025 recipient of New England Foundation for the Arts Public Learning Fund.
Jaina currently serves on the Somerville Armory Advisory board alongside her community, making plans to support the community through the historic Armory building.