The 2021 grants focus on research and scholarship that seeks to fill gaps and provide missing information in the history of women and photobooks from 1843 to 1999. The theme expanded on 10×10’s project What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843 to 1999. We were extremely impressed with the range and strength of submissions which further evidences the need and opportunity for more research into the history of the photobook and the many stories and topics yet to be well known.
The three recipients of the 2021 10×10 Research Grants on Photobook History were:
Faride Mereb
Karmele Leizaola and Venezuelan Publishing
Yasmine Nachabe Taan
Catherine Leroy’s Work in Beirut
Uschi Klein
Clara Spitzer and Women Photographers in Communist Romania
Many thanks to our jurors, Dr. Susan Bright, Ingrid Masondo and Sarah Meister for their work in reviewing and considering the many proposals.
View video of 2021 Research Grantee Presentations.
The jurors’ commented on the winners:
- Karmele Leizaola (Faride Mereb’s focus) and Clara Spitzer (Uschi Klein’s focus) are deserving of further research. There is very little to be found about them and filling that gap is precisely the objective of the grant.
- Faride Mereb’s proposal offers the possibility of expanding our understanding not only of Karmele Leizaola’s work, but the role of women in the Venezuelan art publishing world more broadly.
- I am excited at the prospect of finding out more about Leizaola and her work. I love that she not only produced photographs but was immersed in the production of a range of publications and imagery featuring the work of other artists as well.
- Catherine Leroy’s (Yasmine Nachabe Taan’s focus) work in Lebanon will soon receive the attention it deserves and is most compelling to me in terms of subject matter. She is becoming better known in the U.S. but less so in Europe.
- The idea of a focused examination of a specific woman photographer—Spitzer—and of the sole photography journal published with the blessing of the Communist Party in Romania is of great interest to me. Romanian cultural production is often disregarded within the Western canon and the time period is fascinating.
The 2021 Jurors:
Dr. Susan Bright is an Australian/British curator currently based in London. She was a curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London before deciding to work independently in the early 2000s. In 2007 she co-curated the landmark exhibition How We Are at Tate Britain. In the same year she curated Face of Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Other significant exhibitions include: Home Truths at The Photographers’ Gallery and the Foundling Museum in London. Her survey exhibition Feast for the Eyes toured to six major museums and galleries worldwide (2018-2021). From 2015-2017 she was a mentor for the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and the Aperture Foundation partnership project ‘Immersion’. In 2019 Bright was guest curator for PHotoESPAÑA, and is currently co-curator of f/stop 9: Festival für Fotografie Leipzig 2021. She has authored and co-authored seven books.
Ingrid Masondo is the curator of photography and new media at the Iziko South African National Gallery (ISANG) in Cape Town, where she also served as Acting Director in 2017. Her focus at ISANG is to support the presentation and acquisition of works by invisibilised artists and communities. Her practice in the art and heritage sectors spans more than two decades and has encompassed artist and project management, production management, research, editing, curatorial and archiving work, particularly in photography and music. She has worked at the Market Photo Workshop, Chimurenga Chronic, UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives, Making Music Productions and Badilisha Poetry Radio. She has counselled for Rape Crisis, been an organizer with Media Watch and is a founding member of the Cape Town Women’s Café and Groove Matters.
In May 2021 Sarah Meister will become the Executive Director of Aperture. She has been a Curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art since 2009, where her most recent exhibitions include Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography, 1946-1964 (2021) and Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures (2020). Other recent publications and projects have considered the work of Gordon Parks (2020), Luigi Ghirri (2020), and Frances Benjamin Johnston (2019). She is the co-director of the August Sander Project, a five year research initiative that will conclude in September 2021.
10×10’s Research Grants for 2021 were generously underwritten by the MUUS Collection, an organization with a mission to make visible their photography collection and archives through exhibitions, scholarship, donations, licensing, and the printing of images and books. Additional support was also provided by Richard Grosbard and David Solo, 10×10 Grants Director.