The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (TCVA) is excited to announce the call for entry to this year’s upcoming 22nd Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition exhibition.
This year’s exhibition will be juried by Frances Bukovsky and Susan Patrice of Kinship Photography Collective, who chose “Making Kin: Belonging & Longing in Appalachia” as the theme. They “are seeking photographs and projects that show us how Appalachia has shaped your sense of kinship and belonging,” and are “…are especially interested in images and projects that honor diverse roots, complex connections, and entangled relationships.” They ask, “How have you found, stewarded, or made home in these mountains and valleys? Maybe it is by the river, in the woods, at your grandmother’s kitchen table, alongside your own wild-crafted family, or in the murky relationships with other complicated bodies. How has photography helped you deepen your intimacy with human and more-than-human kin?”
Bukovsky, Rivergifts
Submittal Process
The AMPC is continuing its updated submission process for single-image and series submissions. The single-image submission application will be the most familiar to previous AMPC artists. In lieu of submitting images to themed categories, artists will be able to submit 1-5 standalone images aligned with the theme of “Making Kin: Belonging & Longing in Appalachia” for $10 dollars. The series submission option allows artists to submit 6-12 images from a singular body of work for $15 dollars. Selected artists from this category will show six images chosen by the jurors from their submitted series, highlighting the AMPC’s vision to support the expansion of Appalachian narratives. The deadline for submissions is November 15, 2024. Artists will be notified of their acceptance on December 6, 2024 and will be expected to deliver their artwork to TCVA in Boone, NC, by January 17, 2025. Artists are responsible for transporting artwork to TCVA. TCVA will provide complimentary return shipping via FedEx to exhibiting artists.
The 22nd AMPC exhibition will open Friday, February 7, 2025 with a public reception that evening. People’s Choice voting will take place in-person in the gallery, and the winner will be announced at the Awards Reception (date TBD) along with the Juror’s awards. The exhibition will be on view through May 3, 2025. In addition to the awards reception, there will be public programming which will include a panel discussion with the jurors and exhibiting artists in partnership with the Appalachian Journal and their special visual arts issue, as well as a multi-week virtual practice group through the Kinship Photography Collective hosted by the jurors while the exhibition is on view.
The Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition is made possible through the generous sponsorship of the Mast General Store with additional support from Appalachian Voices, Virtual Blue Ridge, Bistro Roca, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, Footsloggers Outfitters, Peabody’s, Stickboy Bread.
About the Jurors
Frances Bukovsky (they/them) is a photographer who is interested in the relationships between bodies, places, and identities, particularly within the context of chronic illness, disability, and queerness. Bukovsky was born in upstate New York and earned a BFA with honors from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2018. Since then, their work has been featured in institutions such as UC Irvine’s College of Health Sciences, The Bascom: A Center for the Arts, UGA’s Circle Gallery, and the United Nations HQ in New York City. Bukovsky is a co-founder of Kinship Photography Collective as well as a member of Women Photograph. They reside in Marshall, North Carolina. IG: @frances_bukovsky
Susan Patrice is a documentary photographer and interdisciplinary artist. Her photography and public installations focus on the Appalachian and Southern landscape and its people and feature intimate images that touch deeply into questions of place and belonging. Since 2016, her work has primarily explored the nature of visual perception and its impact on our feelings of connection and kinship with the natural world. Here, she engages in intimate gestural conversations with the land through the use of handbuilt cameras designed in response to place. She lives in Marshall, NC, where she is the director of Makers Circle and a co-founder of the Kinship Photography Collective. IG: @susanpatrice & @kinshipphotographycollective
