The 2026 CENTER Awards: The Me and Eve Award: Peter Teh

The 2026 CENTER Awards: The Me and Eve Award: Peter Teh by Aline SmithsonSeptember 17, 2026

©Peter Teh, from Neither Beginning nor End

Congratulations to Peter Teh for being selected for CENTER’s Me&Eve Grant recognizing his project, Neither Beginning nor End. 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. 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, a Group Exhibition at CENTER, Review Santa Fe participation, Publication in LENSCRATCH, Professional Development Seminars access, Inclusion in the printed Program Guide, and Inclusion in the CENTER Winners Gallery & Archive.

Juror: Barbara Tannenbaum, Curator of Photography and Chair, Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

Juror Bio:

Barbara Tannenbaum has organized over 125 exhibitions during her four-decade career as a curator and academic. Recent exhibitions organized include Ann Hamilton: still and moving • the tactile image; Refocusing Photography: China at the Millennium; Matt Eich and Tyler Mitchell: Sunshine, Shadow, and A Rainbow. She organized the first museum show of print-on-demand photobooks in 2011 and co-organized the first large-scale international exhibition chronicling women’s historic achievements in fine art photography. She has curated solo shows of numerous living artists, including Aaron Rothman, TR Ericsson, Hank Willis Thomas, and Lois Conner. Tannenbaum came to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2011 after serving for 26 years as chief curator at the Akron Art Museum, where she grew the photography collection from 500 to 2,500 works and organized the first traveling solo museum exhibition of the work of Adam Fuss.

©Peter Teh, from Neither Beginning nor End

Neither Beginning nor End

This photographic project explores midlife as a time of change, when familiar identities begin to shift and certainty gives way to self-reflection. The work is rooted in moments of pause, doubt, and quiet observation, using photography as a way to look inward and examine the self from a distance. Rather than presenting clear answers or resolutions, the images reflect the uncertainty of an identity in transition. Past and present overlap, and the future remains open. Fragmentation and ambiguity are embraced as honest parts of becoming, not problems to be solved. Through this process, photography becomes a form of reconciliation—an ongoing dialogue between who I have been and who I am learning to accept. This project is not about crisis as breakdown, but about attention and care. It reflects a commitment to patience, self-compassion, and the understanding that self-acceptance is a practice shaped over time.

MEDIUM
Medium-sized prints, up to 12” x 12”