Fellowship 23
May 11–Jul 28, 2023
Silver Eye Center for Photography
The Aaronel deRoy Gruber & Irving Gruber Gallery
4808 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

For over twenty years, Silver Eye has supported vital new voices in contemporary photography through Fellowship, our annual international juried photography competition. Taking the Fellowship 23 competition as a point of departure, this original exhibition reflects the myriad ways photography shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Working in different creative modes, Fellowship Award winner Samantha Box and Keystone Award honorable mention Karen Lue both use photography to examine, construct, and affirm multiple identities. Box's tableaux present cultural and personal symbols in a photographic space of her making, while Lue contemplates her own movement through her grandmother's apartment in China. Keystone Award winner Dominick McDuffie and Keystone Award honorable mention Terrell Halsey each pursue individual approaches to documenting place in the context of community and belonging. McDuffie’s practice is rooted in documenting Black spaces in Pittsburgh and the people within them, while Halsey utilizes multiple genres to represent the experiences of communities in his home city of Philadelphia.

While this exhibition speaks to photography as a powerful medium for affirmation, it also confronts how visual culture perpetuates harm and racial injustice. Fellowship Award honorable mention André Ramos-Woodard uses reappropriation to challenge the racist history of cartooning and center contemporary Black experience. With a background in journalism, Fellowship Award honorable mention Trent Bozeman’s collaborative social practice brings attention to the continuing racial divide in Elaine, which in 1919 was the site of the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history.

This exhibition reflects Silver Eye’s mission to showcase contemporary photography that addresses artistic and social concerns, often in dialogue with the past. Silver Eye is delighted to support these Fellowship 23 artists at a pivotal point in their creative practice and present their innovative work in dialogue together for the first time.