Huawei and ICP Collaborate on Second Annual NEXT-IMAGE Awards

World Renowned Master Photographer Alec Soth Signs On to Judge Entries Alongside Industry Thought Leaders and Up-and-Coming Visual Creatives
ICP
Jul 26, 2018
World Renowned Master Photographer Alec Soth Signs On to Judge Entries Alongside Industry Thought Leaders and Up-and-Coming Visual Creatives
"Faces" category submission, France. © La Petite Touche.
“Faces” category submission by La Petite Touche, France. © La Petite Touche.

With a shared vision to reinterpret smartphone photography and visual culture, HUAWEI, a leader in global information and communications technology, and the International Center of Photography (ICP), the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture, are collaborating once again to present the second annual NEXT-IMAGE Awards. The entries for the HUAWEI NEXT-IMAGE Awards will be reviewed by an exciting and highly respected panel of judges, including Magnum Photos photographer Alec Soth, along with a group of world-class professionals including:

  • Li Changzhu, Vice President of HUAWEI’s Consumer BG Handsets Product Line, and the founder of HUAWEI’s NEXT-IMAGE Awards
  • Mark Lubell, Executive Director of the International Center of Photography
  • Liu Heung Shing, an accomplished photojournalist, Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer, and the founder of SCoP (Shanghai Center of Photography)
  • Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Art Director and Chief Representative of Leica Galleries International

Rounding out the group are three promising young visual creatives—all ICP Mates (recent graduates of ICP):

  • Morgan Court, a visual artist whose practice explores the fragmentation of identity from a primarily digital and millennial perspective
  • Drew Leventahl, an imagemaker who works primarily in photography and collage 
  • Sharon Pulwer, a photographer and journalist, originally from Israel 

As part of HUAWEI’s broader NEXT-IMAGE plan, Soth will also be hosting a much-anticipated photography masterclass later in the year.

To broaden the diversity and enhance the depth of entries, the 2018 HUAWEI NEXT-IMAGE Awards are broken down into six exciting categories: “Good Night”; “Faces”; “Hello, Life!”; “Check-In”; “Timeline”; and “Storyboard.” The “Good Night” category is all about capturing fun moments in low light; “Hello, Life!” is about sharing the emotion or the inspiration found in everyday experiences; “Faces” is about experimenting with identity and the power of portraiture; “Check-In” looks at discovering new places and new experiences while there; “Timeline” is about filming stories in less than 30 seconds; and finally “Storyboard” asks entrants to tell a story in nine frames by using a grid of photos to develop a meaningful or intriguing narrative. The deadline to submit creative work for this year’s NEXT-IMAGE Awards is August 31, 2018.

In November, HUAWEI will display the winning works from the NEXT-IMAGE Awards as part of a special exhibition at Paris Photo, held at the iconic Grand Palace on the famous Champs-Élysées.

The annual NEXT-IMAGE Awards are an important part of HUAWEI’s overarching NEXT-IMAGE plan to redefine visual expression and culture through more professional and intuitive smartphone cameras. Launched in 2017, the NEXT-IMAGE Awards provide HUAWEI smartphone users from around the world with a gallery where they can showcase their best work to a global audience. Winners will be announced in late September 2018. For more details, please refer to the official NEXT-IMAGE Awards website: https://gallery.consumer.huawei.com.  

About Alec Soth

A celebrated Magnum Photos photographer, Alec Soth’s work is rooted in the distinctly American tradition of “on-the-road photography” developed by Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. Soth has received fellowships from the McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations and was the recipient of the 2003 Santa Fe Prize for Photography. His photographs are represented in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Walker Art Center.

About Huawei Consumer Business Group

HUAWEI's products and services are available in more than 170 countries, and are used by a third of the world's population, ranking HUAWEI third in the world in mobile phone shipments in 2015. Fifteen R&D centers have been set up in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Russia, India, and China. HUAWEI Consumer BG is one of HUAWEI's three business units and covers smartphones; PC and tablets; wearables; mobile broadband devices family devices; and cloud service. HUAWEI's global network advantages, global operation capacity, and global partnership are built on 20 years of expertise in telecom industry. HUAWEI Consumer BG is dedicated to delivering the latest technologies to consumers and sharing the happiness of technological advances with more people around the world. Walk the walk and make dreams come true. For more information please visit: http://consumer.huawei.com/en; or follow us on: www.youtube.com/c/huaweismartphones; https://www.instagram.com/huaweinextimage.

About the International Center of Photography

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Cornell Capa founded ICP in 1974 to preserve the legacy of “concerned photography”—the creation of socially and politically-minded images that have the potential to educate and change the world— and the center’s mission endures today, even as the photographic medium and imagemaking practices have evolved. Through its exhibitions, school, public programs, and community outreach, ICP offers an open forum for dialogue about the role that photographs, videos, and new media play in our society. To date, it has presented more than 700 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes at every level. ICP brings together photographers, artists, students, and scholars to create and interpret the realm of the image. Here, members of this unique community are encouraged to explore photography and visual culture as mediums of empowerment and as catalysts for wide-reaching social change.

Contact

Meryl Cooper, press@icp.org