The MACK First Book Award is a publishing prize open to artists who have not previously had a book published. The award was established in 2012 to support emerging artists and bodies of work that find a voice through the book form.

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Each year, our jury creates a shortlist of the ten best submissions. The winner will receive the opportunity to collaborate with MACK in publishing their book project. The winning book will be announced and launched in May 2021, alongside a solo exhibition at Webber Gallery, London.

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The Award has helped to further the careers of previously unknown and emerging artists, offering both shortlisted artists and winners unique exposure on an international scale. The winning project from 2018, TTP by Hayahisa Tomiyasu, received critical acclaim and is on its third edition. Many of the shortlisted artists have gone on to be represented by galleries and to exhibit internationally; Joanna Piotrowska, winner in 2014, has had recent solo shows at Kunsthalle Basel and TATE Britain, and Sofia Borges, winner in 2016, was included in the MoMA New Photography 2018 exhibition.

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Over the years, artists that did not win but made it to the shortlist have been published by MACK, including books by Aleix Plademunt, Carly Steinbrunn, Ivars Gravlejs, and Kevin Lear. Numerous of the shortlist have also gone on to find publishers for their book projects.

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‍About the Judges:

Mariama Attah is a photography curator, editor and lecturer with a particular interest in overlooked visual histories, and using photography and visual culture to amplify under and misrepresented voices. Mariama is curator of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. She was previously Assistant Editor of Foam Magazine. Prior to this, she was Curator of Photoworks, where she was responsible for developing and curating programs and events including Brighton Photo Biennial and was Commissioning and Managing Editor of the yearly magazine Photoworks Annual.

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Polly Fleury is Director of Special Projects at the Wilson Centre for Photography where she works closely with museums, artists, galleries and publishers bringing historical and contemporary photography to public view.

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Renée Mussai is a London-based scholar and curator of photography and lens-based media. She is Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial & Collections at Autograph, London. Mussai is also Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London; and regular guest curator and former fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. She writes and lectures internationally on photography, visual culture and curatorial activism; her latest publication is the artist monograph Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born To Endless Night — Dark Matter (2019/20). She writes and lectures internationally on photography, visual culture and curatorial activism.

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Eugenie Shinkle is a photographer and writer. Her work engages with a variety of media including painting, photography, music, and digital games. She is the co-founding editor of photography platform c4journal, and has  also contributed to a range of publications including the Art Journal, The Journal of Architecture, 1000 Words, Source, American Suburb X and Foam. Shinkle is Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster in London, England.

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Clare Strand is a British conceptual artist, working with and against the photographic medium. Over the past two decades she has worked with found imagery, kinetic machinery, web programmes, fairground attractions and most recently, large scale paintings. Strand’s work has been widely exhibited in venues such as The Museum Folkwang; The Center Pompidou; Tate Britain; Salzburg Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her work is held in the collections of MOMA; SFMoma; The V&A; The Center Pompidou; The British Council; McEvoy Collection; The Arts Council; The NY Public Library; The Uni Credit Bank; The Mead Museum and Cornell University. She has produced 3 publications, Clare Strand Monograph (Steidl, 2009), Skirts (GOST, 2014) and Girl Plays with Snake (MACK, 2017). She is represented by Parrotta Contemporary, Cologne/Bonn.

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In order to maintain an entirely female jury this year, Michael Mack will not be a voting member of the panel. He will be reviewing every submission as he has done in previous years.

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More Information

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