Excerpted from source: Lenscratch
Every year, the Lenscratch Student Prize Awards give us an opportunity to celebrate and support the next generation of photographic artists. Hundreds of artists shared their work with us– powerful creative voices that make us truly excited about the future. Before we begin the celebration of our 7 winners tomorrow, we wanted to shine a light on 25 photographers that you should have (and keep) on your radar. Congratulations to all!
Leni Wiegand
Indiana University, MFA in Photography
Work needs to be done to make the world a more accepting place for trans people. The falsely accepted norm of the gender binary needs to be dismantled, particularly in the face of growing anti-trans sentiment and legislature. It’s no longer ok for people to stand by as our safety and rights to live are stripped away. Through my work, I seek to educate about the tribulations of those who dare to live beyond the binary.
I show these struggles by utilizing the very texts of the laws that seek to take away my rights. Picking key lines that highlight the more heinous and often ridiculous aspects of transphobia. These snippets of laws are combined with photographic self-portraits of my own transitioning body with the databending process, defying the canon of what bodies should be shown. In databending the binary code of the files themselves is modified using non-traditional editing programs, this proverbial and literal breaking of the binary results in visual glitches.
The glitches that result from the forced modifications the file goes through when databending matches the struggles and scars left behind by those forced to go through the incorrect puberty. In a way, it leaves us glitched from the trauma we faced growing up in a body that felt unnatural to us. These glitches show the difficulties trans and non-binary people face as we are forced to navigate a society that not only expects but strictly enforces the gender binary. We must stretch, modify, and hide our true selves to avoid being erased and deleted from society, to avoid being “fixed” like the glitches we are seen as.
Follow Leni on Instagram: @leni.film.photo
Natalie Arrué
Georgia State University, BFA in Photography
Elizabeth Blackie
Falmouth University, Bachelors
Natalie Brescia
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, MFA in Photography
Jacob Church
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, MFA in Photography
Wyatt Collins
University of North Florida, Bachelors in Photography
Nathan Cordova
University of Arizona, MFA in Photography, Video and Imaging
Emily Damyan
University of East London, BA (Honors) in Photography
Ariana Gomez
University of Texas at Austin, MFA in Studio Art
Francisco Gonzalez Camacho
Aalto University, MA in Photography
Sophia Hadeshian
CUNY Graduate Center, MA in Middle Eastern Studies
Ash Huse
Columbia College Chicago, MFA in Photography
Halima Ibrahim
Stanford University, Bachelors in Art Practice (Honors) and Art History
Alexander Iglesias
Rochester Institute of Technology, BFA in Photographic and Imaging Arts
Joseph Ladrón de Guevara Coca
Centro de la Imagen, Visual Projects and Photography Certificate
Matthew Ludak
University of Wisconsin at Madison, MFA
Lydia McNiff
Illinois State University, Bachelors
Mehrdad Mirzaie
Arizona State University, MFA in Photography
Anh Nguyen
International Center of Photography
Mosfiqur Rahman Johan
Counter Foto Centre for Visual Arts
Emma Ressel
University of New Mexico, MFA in Photography
Quincey Spagnoletti
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, MFA
Leni Wiegand
Indiana University, MFA in Photography
Zhou Yang
Birmingham City University, PhD
Shuyuan Zhou
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MFA
Andrew Zou
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, MFA in Photography
