Ten Years
Aimia | AGO Photography Prize, 2008-2017
The field of photography has been described as one that exacerbates antagonisms, "a permanent hotbed of contradictions." This is also an apt description for the work of the artists who have participated in the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize in its first decade.
From the beginning, the Prize advocated a broad idea of photography, as broad as the range of possibilities that contemporary artists continue to see for the medium. The images have run the spectrum, with some directly observed, others highly staged, and yet others culled from the family record, YouTube, a library picture collection, press photographs, tourist brochures, and textbooks. Subjects have included family relations, sports, advertising conventions, imaging technologies, urban planning, colonialism, industry, and environmental degradation. This retrospective volume brings together the winners and shortlisted works from the Aimia-AGO Photography Prize, between 2008 to 2017, including essays by Alden Hadwen, Sean O’Neill, and Sophie Hackett and biographical notes on the nominees by Sam Cotter.
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Sophie Hackett is Curator, Photography, at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto. Hackett’s areas of specialty include vernacular photographs, photography in relation to queerness, and photography in Canada. She has curated and/or collaborated on a wide range of exhibitions and their accompanying publications, including What It Means to Be Seen: Photography and Queer Visibility; Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s–1980s; Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956–1971; What Matters Most: Photographs of Black Life; Casa Susanna: on Photography and the Play of Gender; and, with Tal-Or Ben-Choreen, Building Icons: Arnold Newman’s Magazine World. Her published writing includes “Queer Looking” in Aperture, “Encounters in the Museum: The Experience of Photographic Objects” in The “Public” Life of Photographs, and “Bobbie in Context” in the award-winning volume Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography.
Alden Hadwen is the Director of Community Engagement at Aimia Canada.
Sean O'Neill is the Director of Public Programs and Partnerships at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
