Community and Identity

AOP Project: Community and Identity

Brought to you by Colourful AOP – a working group established to address the issue of diversity and equality within the photography sector – Community and Identity is an AOP Project open to both members and non-members.

Celebrating the dynamic diaspora of black, asian and indigenous culture and identity, this open call aims to encourage UK photographers of colour to share their work and their experiences. Whilst open to photographers of all backgrounds – this AOP Project is intended as a platform to showcase exceptional underrepresented talent and provide the opportunity of highlighting photographers of colour to commissioners and the wider photography industry.

The theme is open to personal interpretation from photographers and also open to both established and emerging photographers.

Finalists will be selected and notified by our host curator, who in turn will select the final winners, from which we will award Gold and Silver Awards.

Entry information

Curated by Eileen Perrier

Eileen Perrier’s work has been widely exhibited since 1999, including The Photographers’ Gallery, (London, UK); Tate Britain (London, UK); The Whitechapel Gallery (London, UK), the touring exhibition Africa Remix, which included the Hayward Gallery (London, UK) and The Centre Pompidou (Paris, France).

Perrier has also been artist in residence at Light Work (in partnership with Autograph ABP) (New York, USA); in Playing The City, Kunsthalle Schirn (Frankfurt, Germany) and has worked with Tate Britain (as an invited artist) on their education programme – BP Family Festival: Close Encounters of the Art Kind and has work installed from a portrait commission with Kings College London called “Portraits of a Global Law School” on level -1 in Somerset House East Wing.

Recently, Perrier was commissioned by the Foundling Museum, to do a double portrait of ‘Pamela and Nybs’ as part of the ‘Foundling Portraits Campaign’, which documents the former pupils of the Foundling Hospital. This double portrait will go on display from October 2022.

Perrier is also a senior lecturer in Photography and has been a Trustee at The Photographers’ Gallery (2019 – 2021) and Chair of Hundred Heroines (2020 – 2021).

About Colourful AOP

The Colourful AOP group has been established to address the issue of diversity and equality within the photography sector. The objectives of the group are as follows:

To be a working group that represents AOP members of colour
To challenge and address the inequality within the photographic and creative industry and increase the awareness of photographers of colour.
To set achievable initiatives as part of the AOP and set completion dates for agreed initiatives to encourage fulfilment and stimulate new initiatives
To change the perception/opinion of the decision makers and broaden the view of why they use people of colour to shoot certain types of images
Along with the AOP, to apply positive pressure on those who make the decisions or are seen as gatekeepers
To give additional support and nurture AOP members of colour
To attract younger photographers of colour to the AOP
To be positive, uplifting, inspiring and celebratory for all communications, events, etc.

Find out more here.

Project Details

For this special Project there are no restrictions on what you can enter. We simply want to see your most amazing work.

You can enter Stills, Series and Moving Images.

This AOP Project (postponed until 2023) will open on Monday 3 October 2022 and close on 30th November with winners being revealed in December 2022. Gold and Silver winners and selected finalists will be exhibited at the 38th AOP Awards Showcase event in 2023 and also be published in the accompanying AOP Awards Book.

This is your chance to be seen by leading commissioners and names withing the photographic industry.

Still Images

A single image or series of images (2-5) can be entered.

Moving Images

A piece of moving imagery up to 7 minutes in length, content is up to you but must demonstrate your understanding and skills within the medium. All entries in this category must reference whether the work is collaboration with another artist be it a director, editor, colour grader, musician etc. or whether it’s the independent work of the photographer. You may wish to illustrate the creative use of technologies for example AR, VR, CGI or any other technique.

Prizes

Prizes are to be announced at a later date

Entry Fees

Single
Members – £8.00
Non-members – £12.00

Series
Members – £20.00
Non-members – £34.00

Moving Image
Members – £8.00
Non-members – £12.00

Entry Timeline

Project postponed until 2023

Terms + Conditions

See Full Terms and Conditions of Entry here

Image Specifications Summary:

7. Entry Procedure, Technical Specification and Format – Stills

Images submitted online should be RGB and in JPEG format. They should be no larger than 3500 pixels on the longest edge. Your final file size must not exceed 10 megabytes

8.2 Image / File Specifications:

Only the following format will be accepted for judging: ● H.264 or H.265 encoded MP4 files
● Resolution: 1920 (width) x 1080 (Height) (HD)
● Maximum File size: 5GB

● Maximum length: 15 minutes. If your submission is successful, you may be required to submit an additional shorter edit of the winning entry, for screening during the presentation.

8.3 Please note – Quicktime .MOV, Flash .SWF and Windows WMV files will not be accepted, nor will .OGG or WebM encoding.

See Full Terms and Conditions of Entry here