Join us on Thursday, December 7th, 2023 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM for the Opening Reception of our exhibitions; the 2023 Fellowship Awards: Oji Haynes and Kaima Marie Akarue, and Austin Cullen: dust watching.
© Oji Haynes
Each year, Houston Center for Photography selects an expert writer, critic, or curator to identify two artists from hundreds of submissions who exemplify excellence and innovation in their approaches to new photography. The Houston Center for Photography Fellowship and the Carol Crow Fellowship Awards aim to highlight each artist’s work and to offer them a platform and support to continue developing their projects. One Houston-based artist (residing within a 100-mile radius of Houston) receives the Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship and another artist, from anywhere in the world, receives the HCP Fellowship. The two selected artists are each awarded $3,000 and an exhibition at HCP. The competition is open to all photographic, film, video, and lens-based installation work.
HCP is pleased to exhibit the work of our Annual Fellows for 2022: Oji Haynes (Brooklyn, NY) and Kaima Marie Akarue (Houston, TX). Haynes is the HCP Fellow, and Akarue is the Carol Crow Memorial Fellow. The 2022 Fellowship Awards were juried by Zora J Murff, an artist, educator, and organizer.
© Austin Cullen
“Dramatic dioramas, interactive virtual experiences, and miniaturized landscapes all act as windows into the natural world. While this framing acts as a guide for reading and understanding nature, the same frame can be analyzed to understand the complex and ever-changing relationship between people and land. Before, natural history museums were one of the only ways to describe unknown landscapes. Now, it takes seconds to visit these spaces digitally. How does this access affect how we see nature, and what role does the digital medium play in informing it? In dust watching, the new digital landscape and museum nature's relationship are contrasted and connected.”
– Austin Cullen
Austin Cullen is a Houston based photographic artist and educator. He received his BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2019, and his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2022. He currently works as the Head of Digital Media at Cypress Falls High School, and as an educator at the Houston Center for Photography. Austin's work has been included in numerous venues including Lawndale Art Center, Filter Photo Gallery, Candela Books + Gallery, and the Midwest Center for Photography. His work has been featured in Fraction Magazine, F-Stop Magazine, Urbanautica, Yogurt Magazine, and Sola Journal among other printed and online publications.