THE CENTER AWARDS: ME&EVE GRANT: ANNA REED

THE CENTER AWARDS: ME&EVE GRANT: ANNA REED by Kassandra EllerMay 22, 2024

Congratulations to Anna Reed for being selected for CENTER’s Me&Eve Grant recognizing her project, Merging Dimensions. The Me&Eve Grant provides financial support to a woman, female-identified, non-binary, transgender, gender non-conforming, or two-spirited photographer, 40 years of age and over in its fourth year. This grant is made possible by Review Santa Fe alumna, Dorie Hagler, whose project Me&Eve amplifies the voices of women. Initiated in 2016 on International Women’s Day, this project was inspired after seeing the transformative effects of witnessing women share their stories. The Grant includes a $1,000 cash award, Mentorship, Professional Development Workshop Admission, Complimentary participation and presentation at Review Santa Fe, Group Exhibition of Award & Grant Winners at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Project Publication in Lenscratch & Feature Shoot, and inclusion in the CENTER Image Library & Archive. Also, new in 2022, and in alignment with CENTER’s response for recognition of equity and representation in the field, all Me&Eve applicants will be invited to contribute to SHOTBYWOMEN – an Image Bank platform for license and distribution of content created exclusively by women and female-identifying photographers from around the world.

JUROR: Eve Schillo, Associate Curator, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA shares her thoughts on this selection:

I was impressed with the depth and breadth of the submissions for the 2024 Me&Eve Award and honored to be, in many cases, the first one to review newly minted work. Many series were born during and as a result of issues surrounding the pandemic years, and just now (“post pandemic”?) are gaining strength: to those brave enough to attempt to put those emotions into visual language, I thank you.

The winning submission by Anna Reed offers a strong visual representation of our current engagement with technology (hello cameras everywhere) and its impact on our humanity (perpetual lenses defining the self and society) in the series Merging Dimensions. Big topics made intimate, knowable, in a visceral sense, with an intriguing range of formats (goodbye standard photo sizes), and a healthy embrace of the digital ‘glitch.’ This work is as figurative and as abstract as the human condition. And waves its tech freak flag proudly.

Portrait of Anna Reed

Anna Reed is a Chicago-based artist whose work addresses the themes of identity, posthumanism, fragmentation, and the boundaries of virtual space. How and where do we exist? Born into Atari and grappling with AI she is continually curious about the intersection of humanity and tech. Created through Xerox, scans, and other low-fi devices, she often uses her body as source images. The physical body confronts the screen and pushes the invisible boundary of human, device, and the virtual. She collaborates with machines and platforms alternating decisions as the works move from physical to digital and back again.

Follow Anna Reed on Instagram: @annaoreed

Merging Dimensions

I grew up at the pivotal time of technological change. Landlines were replaced with cell phones, email replaced letters, inexpensive laptops replaced computer labs, and social media has since replaced everything else. Having lived with and without an online world I began to question the nebulous boundaries between these modalities and consider the points of intersection and overlap.

Our media saturated world shapes how we see and project ourselves. I have felt the physical pain of staring into a screen, acknowledged the haunting specter of surveillance, and felt the fear and anxiety for a world I cannot see, hear, or touch. Simultaneously I have found respite in curated programs and felt comforting closeness of distant loved ones through computer generated light beams. Guy Debord wrote, “Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” That the representation is in turn being directly lived. Online programs track and store our behavior and we become code and algorithms. Do we have a human future or have we become commodities as we project and consume our own images? Is our future already automated and curated for us? Do we have a choice in the formation we seek or do we live in our own echo chambers?

It is from this uncertain place that I create work. I use my body as source imagery through lens based devices creating an intimate performance between human and the machine. Digital photographs, captured through low-tech devices, create intimate moments where technology and humanity converge. Vivid color and fragmented images both draw the viewer in and obscure information. They evoke emotions of connection, isolation, closeness, and vulnerability, prompting us to question which of our versions of self are complete. – Anna Reed

© Anna Reed, Unlimited Personal Cookies, from Merging Dimensions. Each panel is a slice of a self portrait that collectively create a barcode that scans with a cell phone to reveal changing products for sale.