Xitek 2018 New Talent Award | Announcing an All-new Jury

After eight years of New Talent, we’ve brought together a jury team unlike any in previous years.

For the first time, we have also designated the jury members as "new talent." This year’s jury team is composed of 6 young critics and curators brought together from around the globe. They come from New York, Berlin, and the world. Their average age is less than 30 years old. Like you, they are new young talents.

Now is the time to let the “new” face to and collide with the “new.”

The inspiration motivating us to make these changes can be summarized by three key words: linking, interaction, and dissemination.

Linking

Photographic imagery is a part of our lives. However, it is the entirety of our lives and knowledge that are the inherent factors in the construction of images. Therefore, photography may not be flat, but rather it can be a comprehensive compression of an artist's interior thought.

For this reason, we have not limited the selection of judges to those focusing solely on photography or even on the image field. We hope to link the knowledge of different disciplines, bring together young people from different regions, and look forward to use a globally interconnected perspective to interrogate the new. We are broadening the field of possibilities to open a space for yet newer creative collisions and collaboration.

Interaction

Is a competition just for competing? Is the role of the jury only to select? Should it not also provide more interactive opportunities for participants, therefore inspiring more ideas, innovation, and needs?

In order to let young talent from all parts of the world dialogue directly with cutting-edge innovators within the local community, we will arrange for the judges, finalists and winners of the New Talent Award to come to Beijing during the final selection events to meet, converse, participate in lectures, and party. We believe the time these young people from different countries will spend together during the Award events will cause them to refresh each other’s knowledge systems and concepts, have real interactions and start friendships, which will inevitably bring new surprises.

About the Schedule:

From August 21st to August 22nd, 2018, the jury team will thoroughly review the preliminary screened works and select six emerging photographers to be short-listed for the New Talent Award. The finalists will be notified on August 22 to arrive in Beijing on August 25 to participate in the final election meeting. We encourage all participating photographers to be aware of this time frame and make arrangements in advance.

On August 26, the judges team will meet face-to-face with the short-listed photographers, and afterwards will decide on the winner of the New Talent Photography Award. In the evening, the short-listed photographers, guests and judges will participate in the 2018 New Talent Award Cocktail Reception.

Special Notice:

All participating contributors, whether selected or not, have the chance to participate in the exchange and the final group exhibition!

Dissemination

2018 marks the eighth year for the New Talent Award. Compared with 2010, if anything has changed most significantly during these eight years, it is undoubtedly that our world is more like a “global village.” And our young people deserve to be viewed from a worldwide perspective and to take their place on a more global platform. (On this note, we will work to create an extraordinary exhibition for the short-listed photographers, stay tuned!)

The new judges will contribute different perspectives to the award judging, the exhibition and media. In addition, when they go back, they will also communicate to the world about the new talent they’ve seen here.

Jury Team Members

Lennart Wolff

Lennart Wolff is an architect and curator based in Berlin. He graduated from the Architectural Association, London. In 2018 he co-founded the AA Visiting School Zurich. He has written for magazines like Frieze, Kaleidoscope, and Cura among others. Together with Elisa R. Linn he co-founded the curatorial project Km Temporaer, which was included by Artsy on a list of “The 20 Most Influential Young Curators in Europe.”

Oluremi C. Onabanjo

Oluremi C. Onabanjo is a curator and scholar of photography and the arts of Africa based in New York. She is Director of Exhibitions and Collections at The Walther Collection Project Space. Recent projects include co-curating Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography (2017), and editing its accompanying publication (Steidl, 2017), which was shortlisted for an ICP Infinity Award in Critical Writing and Research (2018). In 2018, she worked on the large-scale exhibition Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Media Art (Neu-Ulm, Germany 2018–19), and managed the accompanying publication (Steidl, 2018). Onabanjo has contributed to catalogues and publications by 10x10 Photobooks, the American Federation of Arts, Aperture, and The Studio Museum in Harlem amongst others.

Xin Wang

Xin Wang is an art historian, curator, and art critic based in New York. Past curatorial projects include Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China (2013) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, THE BANK SHOW: Hito Steyerl (2015, Shanghai), chin(A)frica: an interface (2017, New York), and Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Media Art (Neu-Ulm,Germany 2018-19). Her writing has been featured in publications such as E-flux, Artforum, Rhizome, Kaleidoscope, Hyperallergic, and Leap. She is currently pursuing a PhD in modern and contemporary art at Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Wang is a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art since spring 2018.

Lisa A. Orcutt

Lisa A. Orcutt is a curator and art historian based in New York and Beijing.
She holds a Bachelor of Law degree in sociology from Renmin University of China. From 2014-2015 she conducted field research into the topic of legitimacy change for areas of high artist concentration in Beijing since 1990. Orcutt obtained an MA degree in 2018 from Institute of Fine Arts, New York University where she focused on contemporary art and curatorial studies. She has previously served as project coordinator at the Danish Cultural Center (798, Beijing). In 2017, she co-organized the ten artist group exhibition Vestige(s) (Commons Gallery, New York) as well as co-authored the accompanying catalogue essays.

Bo Wang

Bo Wang is an artist and filmmaker based in New York. He holds a BS degree in Physics and Mathematics and a MS degree in Physics from Tsinghua University, later in 2011 he obtained a MFA degree from School of Visual Arts, New York. As an artist, his work has been shown at such venues as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Moscow Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Shanghai Biennial, and the Guangzhou Times Museum of Art, among others. Wang currently teaches in the Visual and Critical Studies & Art History departments at the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Elisa R. Linn

Elisa R. Linn is a curator and writer based in Berlin and New York, and a graduate of the Independent Study Curatorial Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2018). Her recent projects have been shown at institutions such as Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (Aachen, 2015), British School at Rome (Rome, 2018), Bronx Museum (NYC, 2018), The Kitchen (NYC, 2018), the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC, 2018), and the German Center for Architecture (Berlin, 2018). Her writing has appeared in publications and magazines including Frieze, Spike Art Quarterly, Kaleidoscope and Artforum. Together with Lennart Wolff she co-founded the curatorial project Km Temporaer, listed by Artsy among “The 20 Most Influential Young Curators in Europe.”

A fresh and talented team of judges is now in place.

We are also extending the deadline for entries to August 10th, 2018.

New talent, where are you?

Deadline for submission of works

From today – 8/10

Preliminary Selection

2018/8/11 – 8/19

Final Elections

2018/8/20 – 8/26

Xitek New Talent Award Party

2018/8/26

Award Ceremony and Exhibition

2018/9/21

Entry Requirements

1. Less than 35 years of age (born after Jan 1, 1983)

2. Submitted work must be original work by the candidate, produced in the last two years, and must not have shown previously in a solo exhibition. Note: For long-term series, the latest work should be created before the due date.

3. Please submit at least five entries. For e-mail and mail entries please download and fill in the entry form to send it together with your works.

4. The New Talent Award seeks to maintain a certain level of tolerance for the concept of “medium” on the basis of traceable practical and theoretical foundations. Photos and photography-related mixed media are qualified for the competition.

How to enter

1. Official Website: login to www.newtalentaward.com, upload your works on the “Entry” page of the New Talent website.

2. E-mail or Mail: You are welcome to submit your works either via e-mail (newtalent@xitek.com) or mail (in the material form of printed photos, photo books, etc.). Whether submitting by e-mail or mail, be sure to download and fill in the Entry Form to send together with your works.

Note: Please post entries in material form to: New Talent Award Committee, Xitek, E209 of Shang 8 International AD Park, No.3 Xiadianjia, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100022, P.R.China. Tel: 0086 10 85805422-825