20th Anniversary Appalachian Mountain Photography Celebration

March 3, 2023 – June 3, 2023(This exhibition has passed.)

Bickers Gallery

In honor of the Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition’s (AMPC) 20th Anniversary, University Recreation, in partnership with the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State and Virtual Blue Ridge, is hosting six Appalachian photographers in this year’s anniversary invitational exhibition.

The six invited artists will exhibit images that both celebrate the 20-year history of the exhibition as well as represent future possibilities for the competition and the expansion of Appalachian visual narratives. Three have been a part of AMPC in the past and three are new artists who are contributing to the conversation of photography in Appalachia in meaningful ways that deepen the on-going visual conversation about place, community, and regional identity.

The AMPC exhibition is hosted in conjunction with the BANFF Film Festival at Appalachian State University.

The Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition is made possible through the generous sponsorship of the Mast General Store. Additional support comes from Appalachian Voices, Bistro Roca, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, Footsloggers Outfitters, Peabody’s Wine & Beer Merchants, Stick Boy Bread Company, and Smoky Mountain Living. Visit the AMPC website for more information: www.appmtnphotocomp.org

The competition format will resume for the 21st AMPC with an open call for submissions in the fall of 2023.

Byron Tenesaca-Guaman, La Virgen

Jessica Maceda, Awesome Blossom

Alicia Green, Sparkles Work for Me

Raymond Thompson Jr, Appalachian Ghosts – The Dust #5

Wendy Ewald, I am the girl with the snake around her neck by Denise Dixon

Ant M Lobo-Ladd, Studies Building Collage

About the artists

Celebrating the 20-year history of the exhibition, artists Jessica Maceda, Byron Tenesaca-Guaman, and Alicia Green will be welcomed back to the AMPC to share their work.

Jessica Maceda will share images, spanning more than a decade, documenting the landscapes of the area through the lens of a local community member.

Byron Tenesaca-Guaman’s work highlights the “system of reciprocity that exists between humans and the mountains” in his homes of an ancestral community in the Ecuadorian Andes and the Cherokee Mountains of Southern Appalachia (http://byron-tenesaca.com/).

Through candid portraits and action photography, Alicia Green’s work uplifts the local skater scene.

Jessica Maceda

Byron Tenesaca-Guaman

Alicia Green

Representing the future possibilities of the competition and expanding Appalachian narratives, artists Raymond Thompson Jr., Ant M Lobo-Ladd, and Wendy Ewald have been invited to share their work.

In his series, Appalachian Ghosts, Raymond Thompson Jr. “recontextualizes and re-presents archival photographs” documenting the construction of Hawks Nest Tunnel, built “to divert the New River near Fayetteville, WV,” and brings forth the importance of African-American narratives.

Ant M Lobo-Ladd’s work shares intimate photographs and writings that share their experience revisiting Black Mountain College’s Lake Eden campus.

Artist and educator Wendy Ewald will be exhibiting images from her series, Portraits and Dreams, which offers a unique methodology for empowering communities to tell their own stories through work created by her students in Letcher County, KY.