WHEN: October 25 – 28, 2022, from 12-1pm MT AND 1-2pm MT
WHERE: Hosted online through Zoom – view the event recordings below
HOW: Free & Open to the Public

CENTER highlights excellence and innovative contributions to the field each year with the annual Awards and Project Grants. The selected lens-based artists receive financial support and publishing and exhibiting opportunities made possible by Analog Forever Magazine, Catalyst: Interviews, LENSCRATCH, Strange Fire Collective, and the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts.

In October 2022, each artist shared an intimate view of their project covering today’s most critical issues – mental health, systemic racism, climate change, depleting resources, and current teaching practices, among other topics – followed by a discussion with Moderator Holly Stuart Hughes, Independent Editor, Writer, and Grant Consultant.

Holly Stuart Hughes – Independent Editor, Writer & Grant Consultant; Former Editor-in-Chief, PDN

Holly Stuart Hughes is an independent editor, writer and grant consultant. The former editor-in-chief of PDN (Photo District News), she has organized panels and lectured on artist’s rights and the business of photography around the U.S., and served as a portfolio reviewer at several photo festivals. A graduate of Yale, she has written on photography and media for Time.com, The Telegraph, Multichannel News, Taschen Books, American Photographic Artists, Magnum Photos, Carlton Publishing, and Blouin ArtInfo Media.

BALANCING ASSIGNMENTS & SELF-ASSIGNMENTS –

Winner of the Project Launch Grant, David Walter Banks specializes in documentary, portraiture, and advertising lifestyle imagery. Banks will discuss the making of Practice Resurrection, and how his commercial assignments and personal assignments feed each other and his creativity.

>> Watch the recording

EDITING A LONG-FORM PHOTO PROJECT & GRANT PROPOSAL –

Maximilian Thuemler’s Born From the Limb combines self-portraiture, still life, landscape imagery, and archival imagery and materials. He will explain how he created a tight-knit and cohesive sample for his Project Development Grant submission and the role of constant editing and curation in creating work that interrogate historic representation.

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THE VALUE OF FEEDBACK ON TEXT & IMAGES –

Luis Corzo was abducted at the age of 6 along with his father and held for ransom, an event he has investigated in his project Pasaco, 1996. Corzo, the CENTER Social Award winner, will explain the value of feedback and critiques as he developed new portraits, still lives, landscapes, and text to portray a chapter in the history of his family and of Guatemala.

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WRITING & IMAGES –

Arista Slater-Sandoval, the CENTER Personal Award winner, explains how her practice of “free writing” helped create the conceptual images in her project Parable for Hysteria. Slater-Sandoval will share her advice on editing and incorporating critiques in developing a long-term personal project.

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SEQUENCING & EDITING MULTIMEDIA FOR CLARITY –

Esha Chiocchio, winner of the CENTER Environmental Award, will explain her process for editing images, audio interviews, and text in her project, Good Earth, creating engaging sequences that illuminate the human stories behind the complex issues of soil stewardship and sustainable agriculture in New Mexico.

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INSPIRING & TEACHING CONSCIENTIOUS CREATIVITY –

Callanan Excellence in Teaching Award winner Uche Okpa-Iroha, founder and director of the Nlele Institute in Lagos, Nigeria, will share some of his best known art projects and discuss his teaching, practice, and how he and his students address social and cultural issues.

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FINDING AN AUDIENCE FOR PERSONAL PROJECTS –

Me&Eve Grant winner Heather Evans Smith describes the conception, development, and crafting of the images in Blue, and how she turned a personal experience into an artistry that resonates widely.

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FINDING YOUR PERSONAL VOICE –

Dan Fenstermacher, winner of the Excellence in Multimedia Storytelling Award, will explain how he developed the visual style seen in his project Food Chain. He will share how exploring in-depth, long-term projects helped him find his photographic voice.

>> Watch the recording