The 2024 Saltzman Prize Shortlist

We are pleased to announce the ten international artists who have been shortlisted for the 2024 Saltzman Prize, presented in cooperation with CPW / PHOTOFAIRS NY. The Saltzman Prize recognizes extraordinary achievement by an emerging photographer, one whose work has recently gained wider visibility and whose voice adds new perspectives to the critical discussion around photography and visual culture. The recipient of the Saltzman Prize will receive a $10,000 award, the 2024 CPW Vision Award for Emerging Photographer, and a solo exhibition of their work at PHOTOFAIRS NY (Javits Center, September 5-8, 2024). 

The ten shortlisted artists are: Hady Barry, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Eric Gyamfi, Accra, Ghana; Patrice Aphrodite Helmar, Juneau, AK / New York, NY; Nhu Xuan Huay, Paris, France; Hailun Ma, Shanghai. China / New York, NY; Rory Mulligan, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY; Trina Michelle Robinson, San Francisco, CA; Keisha Scarville, Brooklyn, NY; Caroline Tompkins, New York, NY; and Wilfred Ukpong, Oxford, UK / Clermont-Ferrand, France / Eket, Nigeria.

This shortlist was compiled by the following nominators: Jacqueline Bates, Photography Director, New York Times Opinion; Deana Lawson, artist and educator; Oluremi C. Onabanjo, The Peter Schub Curator of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Lyle Rexer, writer, critic, and curator; and Mark Sealy, Director, Autograph, London.

The recipient of the 2024 Saltzman Prize will be determined by a jury consisting of Dr. Deborah Willis, University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University; Susan Meiselas, photographer and President of the Magnum Foundation; and Yasufumi Nakamori, Director, Asia Society Museum, New York.

An announcement of the Saltzman Prize honoree will be made on March 11, 2024. The Saltzman Prize and the 2024 CPW Vision Award for Emerging Photographer will be presented at the 2024 CPW Vision Awards in Kingston, NY, on April 20, 2024.

Hady Barry is a Guinean-American artist whose practice involves photography and sound. She is interested in the possibilities art offers to challenge and make sense of ourselves and the world we live in. Her work, autobiographical and introspective, primarily interrogates her past, family history, and relationships. In 2022 she was a finalist for the Vantage Point Sharjah Award, a Juror’s Pick for the Lensculture Black and White Photography Awards, and received an Honorable Mention for her submission to the Hariban Award. Her work has been featured in the British Journal of Photography, NAATAL, and Contemporary And. It has been exhibited by the National Portrait Gallery (UK) and the Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE). Hady is a member of African Women in Photography.

Patrice Aphrodite Helmar is an artist who was born in Juneau, Alaska. They worked in their father’s small-town camera shop and darkroom growing up and continue to work in photography. Helmar’s work has been shown at the Jewish Museum, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, Gaa Gallery, the National Museum of Iceland, and other spaces. Helmar’s multidisciplinary work is concerned with issues of labor, class, queerness, and the politics of representation. Helmar’s photography is engaged in the poetics of lived experience and everyday life. Helmar studied at the University of Southeast Alaska (MAT 2013), Columbia University (MFA 2015), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2022). Helmar is currently Lecturer on Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University. Helmar lives and works in Juneau, AK and New York, NY.

Nhu Xuan Hua is a French photographer and artist with Vietnamese heritage. She studied art history and cinema before completing the photography course at the Auguste Renoir Technical school in Paris in 2011. While living and working in London for nearly a decade, she photographed for fashion houses including Dior, Maison Margiela, Kenzo, and Gucci. Nhu Xuan has been exploring a multidisciplinary storytelling practice since returning to Paris. In September 2022 her first solo show, “Hug of a swan” at Huis Marseille (Amsterdam), brought together various projects from the last 6 years. In her first publication, Tropism, Consequences of a Displaced Memory (Area Books, 2022), she reinterprets archival family pictures through digital interventions, exploring the effect of dissipation generated by the passing of time and driven by the forces of inherited memory.

Hailun Ma earned her BFA in Photography and MPS in Fashion Photography at the School of Visual Arts. Her fashion photography experience in New York inspired her to rediscover her hometown of Xinjiang, China differently: since 2018 she has shown an appreciation for Xinjiang’s culture, fashion, and youth. She has appeared in nearly a dozen exhibitions in venues from New York to Miami to Mumbai and Beijing. Her work has also been featured, and she herself profiled, in many influential publications, including NYLON, New York Magazine, and i-D magazine. Recent solo shows have been organized by Gaotai Gallery (Urumqi), Mine Project (Hong Kong), and Alter (Shanghai), and her work is in the collection of institutions worldwide, including the White Rabbit Gallery (Sydney), SONG ART Gallery (Beijing), X Museum (Beijing), and Guangshe Photography Art Center (Beijing).

Rory Mulligan received his MFA in Photography from Yale University and is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Art at Drew University in Madison, NJ. Mulligan’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Light Work. Mulligan’s work has been published by J&L Books, Blind Spot, MATTE, Soft Copy, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. His writing has appeared in two Aperture books (The Photographer’s Playbook and Photo No-No’s). Mulligan has been an artist-in-residence at Light Work (Syracuse, NY) and LMCC’s Art Residency Program on Governor’s Island. He has lectured at Sarah Lawrence College, Yale University, Princeton University, School of the Art Institute Chicago, and the International Center of Photography, among many others. 

Trina Michelle Robinson explores the relationship between memory and migration through installation, film, print media, photography, and archival materials. Her work has been shown at galleries and film festivals including the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, Catharine Clark Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, the Wassaic Project, and the Museum of Contemporary Art – Arlington. She received her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts where she was also awarded the 2020 Yozo Hamaguchi Award. In 2022 she had a solo exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) as part of their 2022-23 Emerging Artist Program and is currently included in the prestigious triennial Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Keisha Scarville weaves together themes of transformation, place, latencies, and the elusive body. Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum of Harlem; ICA Philadelphia; The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute; and The Brooklyn Museum of Art, among other organizations. She has participated in artist residences at Vermont Studio Center, Lightwork, LMCC Workspace, Stoneleaf, Baxter Street CCNY, BRIC Workspace, Center for Photography at Woodstock, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has appeared in publications including Transition, Nueva Luz, Small Axe, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2023 Creator Lab Photo Fund and her book lick of tongue rub of finger on soft wound was shortlisted for the 2023 Aperture-Paris PhotoBook Awards. She teaches at the International Center of Photography and Parsons School of Design in New York.

Caroline Tompkins received a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has worked with editorial and commercial clients such as Apple, The New York Times, Vogue, Hinge, Rolling Stone, and Gap and has photographed an array of magazine covers, including those for Time Magazine, Esquire, Buffalo Zine, and GQ. Caroline has taught courses on photography theory and the landscape of editorial photography, and her writing on photography has been featured in Wallpaper*, British Journal of Photography, and the Aperture publication, Photo No-Nos. Her first monograph, Bedfellow, was published with Palm* Studios in 2023 and won the 2023 Lucie Foundation Photobook Award and Nobuyoshi Araki MA-g Award. Caroline lives and works in New York City. 

Wilfred Ukpong (Ph.D.) is a French Nigerian artist and researcher whose socially engaged practice utilizes interwoven mediums, including photography, film, sculpture, performance, architecture, and creative workshops, to tackle social issues with community participation and intervention. Ukpong’s photographic and art film projects have been exhibited at Alliance Française/Mike Adenuga Centre (Nigeria), FotoFest, Houston (USA), MARKK Museum Hamburg (Germany), and Pipe Factory Glasgow (UK), among others. His project Blazing Century 1 received a grant from the Prince Claus Fund Amsterdam (2010); his award-winning film Future World (2017) was presented at the Nigerian Senate to encourage environmental change in the Niger Delta. Ukpong received his BA/MA in Fine Arts from Ecole Supérieure d’Art Lorient (France) and his PhD from Oxford Brookes University (UK). He lives and works between Oxford (UK), Clermont-Ferrand (France), and Eket (Nigeria).