The Aperture Prize for 2008 has put out its beacon call for entries. This is a good one; Aperture is a class act, and It’s great just to get your work in front of them. Get to it! If you feel anxiety, here are some FAQs.

From the press release:

The purpose of the Portfolio Prize is to identify trends in
contemporary photography and specific artists whom we can help by
bringing their work to a wider audience. In choosing the first-prize
winner and runners-up, we are looking for work that is fresh and that
hasn’t been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues.

First prize is $2,500. The first-prize winner and runners-up are
featured on Aperture’s website for approximately one year. Winners are
also announced in the foundation’s e-newsletter, which reaches
thousands of subscribers in the photography community.

The entry period for the 2008 Aperture Portfolio Prize is Thursday, May
1, through Friday, July 11.

Last year’s winner was
Jessamyn Lovell, whose project Catastrophe, Crisis, and Other
Family Traditions was really a “journal that includes the stories and the
erratic, transformative struggles my family has dealt with . . . a
personal documentation of an American family struggling with class,
religion, and disability.”

There are some really intimate portraits in this work, and a lot of humor.

Klare in the Bathroom, 2006

Lovell also includes maps of the house on her website, which I think
adds a whole new dynamic and really pulls me in. These were originally
simply part of her organizational method:

“I began making these maps when I first started working on my book. The
purpose was, at first strictly utilitarian. I drew them in my journal
in an attempt to try and retrace the history of my family’s house.
Being so far away from my family makes it very difficult to do the
work sometimes. The maps allow me to keep track of where everything is
physically. After showing them to a few people I began making more of
them and including them in my book and with my work. I feel the maps
allow the viewer into the space of my memory.”

Map of Kitchen, from journal, Spring 2001

Lay of the Land, from journal, Spring 2003

 

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