2021

2021 Winner: MARVEL by Marvel Harris

“At first the focus of my project was my gender transition, but along the way I found out that it’s about an ongoing search for myself: being a human with feelings, who is continuously developing.” — Marvel Harris
 
MARVEL describes the journey of Marvel Harris’ personal battles with mental illness, self-love, acceptance, and gender identity, all told through a searing collection of self-portraits spanning the course of five years. These photographs present a new-found visual language; a tool with which Marvel was able to express those emotions that, on account of his autism, he previously struggled to make sense of. The process of making these portraits allowed him to connect to the world around him at the time he needed it most.
 
Winner of the MACK First Book Award 2021, MARVEL is an important new voice which contributes to an increased awareness of the issues surrounding gender identity and mental health. In doing so, this deeply personal book demands a more tolerant attitude from society towards transgender people and those who don’t identify as entirely male or female.

The project will be exhibited at Webber Gallery, London, 5 August - 2 September 2021

More information

Judges

Mariama Attah is a photography curator, editor and lecturer with a particular interest in overlooked visual histories, and using photography and visual culture to amplify under and misrepresented voices. Mariama is curator of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. She was previously Assistant Editor of Foam Magazine. Prior to this, she was Curator of Photoworks, where she was responsible for developing and curating programs and events including Brighton Photo Biennial and was Commissioning and Managing Editor of the yearly magazine Photoworks Annual.

Renée Mussai is a London-based scholar and curator of photography and lens-based media. She is Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial & Collections at Autograph, London. Mussai is also Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London; and regular guest curator and former fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. She writes and lectures internationally on photography, visual culture and curatorial activism; her latest publication is the artist monograph Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born To Endless Night — Dark Matter (2019/20). She writes and lectures internationally on photography, visual culture and curatorial activism.

Eugenie Shinkle is a photographer and writer. Her work engages with a variety of media including painting, photography, music, and digital games. She is the co-founding editor of photography platform c4journal, and has  also contributed to a range of publications including the Art Journal, The Journal of Architecture, 1000 Words, Source, American Suburb X and Foam. Shinkle is Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster in London, England.

Clare Strand is a British conceptual artist, working with and against the photographic medium. Over the past two decades she has worked with found imagery, kinetic machinery, web programmes, fairground attractions and most recently, large scale paintings. Strand’s work has been widely exhibited in venues such as The Museum Folkwang; The Center Pompidou; Tate Britain; Salzburg Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her work is held in the collections of MOMA; SFMoma; The V&A; The Center Pompidou; The British Council; McEvoy Collection; The Arts Council; The NY Public Library; The Uni Credit Bank; The Mead Museum and Cornell University. She has produced 3 publications, Clare Strand Monograph (Steidl, 2009), Skirts (GOST, 2014) and Girl Plays with Snake (MACK, 2017). She is represented by Parrotta Contemporary, Cologne/Bonn.

In order to maintain an entirely female jury this year, Michael Mack will not be a voting member of the panel. He will be reviewing every submission as he has done in previous years.

Supported by

Wilson Centre for Photography
Kraszna-Krausz Foundation