
& Finalists
picks
For me, this image conjures many emotions. It is layered with symbolism - the freedom of the soaring bird, which is small and far away, the reaching hand of the young woman, the shadow cast by her messy bun. I was drawn to its simplicity, and enjoyed the subtle, surrealist distortion of the arm in the mirror. It is, of course, an image that is relevant to the time we are living in, a clear symbol in itself of the brave women in Iran. Because of this, it is my Juror's pick.
Good Hope is a multi-layered body of work, which explores narratives and the possibilities of histories around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Carla's constructed images take the garden and the spaces in and around the cape to carve out non linear narratives of such historic and charged locations. By bringing together cumulative layers or materials, and arranging them so to create conversations amongst them, she is very successful in expressing both a strong critique of the white colonialism ever present through time, and exposing the confusion and impossibilities of linear narratives in this sense - here creating a space for criticality and reckoning.
Acutely affecting, disorienting, humbling, terrifying — I was haunted by Eve Weiner’s self/portrait series Parking Lot Rape for days, weeks, and kept returning to this courageous and compelling ritual of photographic re-enactment. I did not want to, but felt a responsibility to look, to look closely, and look again, to acknowledge, to watch, to listen — to recognise, and see [her]. To acknowledge the horrifying intimacy of this naked female body exposed to the camera’s lens in these powerful tableaux, the rawness, the courage, the profoundly personal and corporeal presence. Not only the embodiment, but also the way these explicitly choreographed photographs so candidly and ominously and brutally evoke the violence of the act in their materiality, imposed by the artist’s hand onto the series’ photographic ‘skin’: a deliberate doing and undoing symbolic of the pain / suffering inflicted, the scars, the tears, the cuts, the scratches, the ruptures. These are raw, unvarnished, remedial portraits that speak palpably to the horror of gender-based violence — images that compel, commit, confound — they constitute a commemoration, a haunting, but also a potent reclamation of space.
It’s often a mystery why one is attracted to a certain piece of art. This diptych by Lorenzo Zoppolato affects me in an almost magnetic way, pulling me in and locking my attention. What is it? Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of an active volcanic eruption with a very still photograph of a bare leg dangling over a scatter of volcanic rocks. I love the tonal range with its multitude of grays and blacks, and I like the clarity and sharpness contrasted with the blur of motion.
In this magnetic black and white photograph, Guerrero foregrounds the poetics of shadows as a site of possibility. The luminous figure at the center exists between worlds: the visible and what lies beyond, nature and humanity. Enigmatic and haunting, her nocturnal image behaves like the opening scene of a novel, prompting more questions than answers, yet grabbing our attention instantly. While certainly narrative driven, it is the photograph’s classic formal attributes – light, composition, and tonal range – that make this image stand out.
Come and Find Me by Arrayah Loynd is a multilayered visual narrative, mesmerizing, destabilizing and filled with questions I can't find answers to. The best part of seeing work that engages me is for me to question my own clarity of who I am. Loynd's work isn't something to look away from, it is something to find yourself in. The collage work, the repetitions of living a dream over and over to what end, pattern changes, all leading to the edge of madness. Or clarity. To me that keeps me coming back to this work, finding something new to explore each time I see it.
The Garden of Forking Paths by Elizabeth Casasola invites the viewer into a labyrinth of images and color fields. Compressed yet multidimensional, this image offers a burst of visual pleasure that beguiles the viewer, drawing them in, while simultaneously obscuring portions of itself from being seen at all. An apt tribute to one of the godfathers of the multi-verse, Jorge Luis Borges, it is an image that contains multitudes.
Diego Moreno’s photographic homage to his “ultra-Catholic” maternal grandmother, Clemencia, both captivates and delights. The playful collaboration between artist and subject not only speaks to their strong emotional bond, but also reflects their Mexican culture. The bravery and trust of Diego and Clemencia is astonishing and heartwarming.

Shana Lopes, PhD, is an Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She has organized exhibitions on cyanotypes, the 1906 earthquake, Atget, Wright Morris, and Eikoh Hosoe. She was the co-curator of Constellations: Photographs in Dialogue (2021), which paired recent acquisitions with existing work from the collection, and A Living for Us All: Artists and the WPA (2021). Most recently, she organized Sightlines: Photographs from the Collection (2022). Over the past fourteen years, she has gained curatorial experience at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Brian Paul Clamp is the owner and director of CLAMP Art, a gallery in Chelsea in New York City specializing in modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on photography. CLAMP Art mounts ten to fifteen exhibitions per year featuring the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Mr. Clamp opened the gallery in 2000 after completing a Master of Arts degree in Critical Studies in Modern Art at Columbia University. For eight years prior to that Mr. Clamp served as the director of a gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side specializing in late 19th- and early 20th-century American paintings. Aside from exhibitions at his own gallery space, Clamp has curated numerous photography shows at various venues throughout the United States, and has reviewed photographers’ portfolios at dozens of events over many years. Mr. Clamp is the author of many publications on American art to date, and also occasionally contributes written work to various art periodicals.

Crista Dix is the Executive Director at the Griffin Museum of Photography.
Before coming to the Griffin Museum in 2020 she spent fifteen years operating her own photography gallery, wall space creative, closing it in 2020 to make the move to New England and the Griffin. Having a career spanning many paths she has a background rooted in science, business and creative art. This well rounded experience provides a solid background for supporting the Griffin’s mission to encourage a broader understanding and appreciation of the visual, emotional and social impact of photographic art.
The Griffin Museum curates over 50 exhibitions a year. As an institution, we are committed to ensuring that our mindset, our practice, our outreach, our programming and our exhibitions set a framework with priorities for building programs and exhibitions that consider diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion through our mission that is centered around the photograph.
Crista has written many essays about photography, introducing creative artists work to a broader community. She has been a member of numerous panels and discussions on the craft of photography, juried creative competitions and has participated in major portfolio reviews.

Izabela Radwanska Zhang is a writer and editor based in London, and of Chinese-Polish heritage. She is the Editor-in-Chief of British Journal of Photography and Editorial Director of 1854 Media. Her words have appeared in Disegno and Press Association among others and she is a guest lecturer and speaker on photography and publishing in various UK-based universities. She has appeared on a number of international photography festival juries and portfolio reviewing panels. Prior to this, she completed a MA in Magazine Journalism at City University, London, and more recently acquired a Postgraduate Certificate in Graphic Design at London College of Communication.

Lesley A. Martin is creative director at the Aperture Foundation and publisher of The PhotoBook Review. She has edited numerous photobooks, including Takashi Homma’s Tokyo (2008), Rinko Kawauchi’s Illuminance (2011), LaToya Ruby Frazier’s The Notion of Family (2013), and recent books by Richard Misrach and Gregory Crewdson. Lesley cofounded the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards and has curated exhibitions for Aperture. Her writing on photography has been published in Aperture, FOAM, Ojo de Pez, and Lay Flat among other publications and she currently teaches a graduate course on the photobook at the Yale University School of Art.

Elisa Medde edits, curates and writes about photography. With a background in Art History, Iconology and Photographic Studies, her research reflects on the relationship between image, communication and power structures. She has been nominator for the Prix Elysée, The Leica Oskar Barnack Award and MAST Foundation for Photography Grant, amongst others. Elisa has chaired numerous juries and written for Foam Magazine, Something We Africans Got, Vogue Italia / L'Uomo Vogue, YET Magazine and other publications. Elisa is Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine, Amsterdam.

Renée Mussai is a London-based curator, writer and scholar of photography and lens-based media with a special interest in African and diasporic lens-based Black feminist and queer visual arts practices. The former senior curator and head of collection at Autograph (a photographic arts charity that addresses politics of race, representation, and social change) where she was responsible for numerous exhibitions, artist commissions, research initiatives and publications over more than two decades, she is artistic director and chief curator at the Walther Collection, a New York-based arts foundation. Since 2009, Mussai has conceptualised and organized over thirty internationally travelling exhibitions including Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness and the critically acclaimed Black Chronicles archive programs, amongst many other solo and group exhibitions. Alongside her research-led curatorial practice, she lectures and publishes widely on photography and curatorial activism. Her recent publications include Lina Iris Viktor's award-winning monograph Some Are Born to Endless Night—Dark Matter (2020) and the forthcoming Eyes That Commit: Black Women and Non-Binary Photographers—A Visual Survey’ (Prestel, 2023). Mussai is a research associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; associate lecturer at University of the Arts London; and former guest curator and fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.

Jim Casper is the editor-in-chief of LensCulture, one of the leading online destinations to discover new contemporary photography from around the world. As an active member in the contemporary photography world, Casper loves to meet with photographers and talk about photography. He curates art exhibitions, publishes books, conducts workshops, serves as an international juror, nominates photographers for key awards, and is an advisor to arts and education organizations.
