Special Merit Award

Rugby category. Australia’s Len Ikitau in action during the Rugby Union International between France and Australia at the Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France.

Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

Over the last year, MoMA’s Department of Photography has been home to the poet Robin Coste Lewis, who joined us as part of the inaugural cohort of Ford Foundation Scholars in Residence. During her residency, Coste Lewis expressed an interest in the Museum’s holdings of vernacular photography. Her recent book, To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness (2022), is a genre-bending exploration of poetry, photography, and human migration through a personal meditation on the photographic vernacular of her own family.

With the support of curatorial assistant Antoinette Roberts, Coste Lewis and I worked through the Museum’s expansive holdings of vernacular photographs—encountering elaborate albums, intimate portraits, touching snapshots, and even “trick pictures” that playfully anticipate the formal photographic interventions popular among the European avant-garde. MoMA’s collection gallery Visual Vernaculars unites photographs such as these alongside a selection of works inflected by the logic of the everyday. The artworks on view in this gallery inspired Coste Lewis to write a number of texts, which appear below. Speaking directly to the pictures on view, her poetic ruminations reveal the role of photography in the construction of a self-image, giving form to interrelated social identities, relationships, and communities.
—Oluremi C. Onabanjo

The mother has been a recurring figure throughout human history. Goddesses, Divinities, the One Who Gives Birth to the entire universe. Images, objects, epics, and hymns that exalt the maternal saturate every aspect of artistic engagement regardless of location, continent, time period, or medium. With the advent of photography in the 19th century, this artistic phenomenon continued from the earliest of photographic technologies: daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. And because of the accessibility photography offered—and still offers—to everyday people, photography’s vernacular historical record is saturated with images of mothers of all kinds.

Our family albums tell us who We are together. They are also the crumbs we leave on the forest ground for future generations to discover—in order to find their ways home. In photo albums, the Me transforms these images into the We. This was and remains the primary gift of photography’s democratizing force. Suddenly, with the advent of the camera, an entire flurry of images—cheap and reproducible—were at our fingertips. Beauty was no longer reserved solely for the walls of libraries and museums, whose collections had always been private, reserved for the upper classes. Now, with photography, absolutely anyone could walk into the frame. This is especially evident in photo albums. A photo album is a private museum and a self-published book all braided into one. And because they were preserved—for us—these albums are also now rare historical objects who tell us who We once were—and were not.

Visual Vernaculars is on view in MoMA’s fifth-floor collection galleries through August 2024.

Dunedin, New Zealand

A little blue penguin. The flightless bird, native to New Zealand and the world’s smallest penguin species, is ‘at risk’, according to the country’s Department of Conservation

Photograph: Sanka Vidanagama/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

SIOUX CENTER—A portrait and wedding photographer has found a new studio space downtown Sioux Center.

What was home for several decades to the quilting and fabric store Roelofs at 24 Third St. NW has been transformed into a picture-perfect space for Becky Vanden Brink, 33, of Sioux Center, owner of Picture This Photography.

Mid-July marked the opening of her studio that took a few months from her late spring lease start for the city-owned building to turn it into a picturesque location. While no walls were removed or added, everything inside was pulled out, including all the shelves and cork boards lining the walls.

Vanden Brink credits her husband, Alec, for creating her industrial concrete floors by removing the worn carpet, sanding and polishing it to give its current shine. The couple also painted every interior wall white. They also removed the Roelofs awning from the exterior and patched and painted that area black.

A sign for the business at that property is coming soon.

“The space is what I love the most and the lighting is awesome,” Vanden Brink said. “As I was thinking about the future of my business, I needed space to grow and I can do that here.”

Vanden Brink said a potential move away from the community about a year ago that didn’t end up happening prompted her review of where she wanted to take her business.

“I had considered just stopping my business if we were to move, but by choosing to stay here, I felt a change or revision in what I’m doing was needed for me to keep going,” Vanden Brink said.

She started Picture This Photograph with a partner 13 years ago. Along the way she became the sole owner and for the past seven years she’s used a 600-square-foot space above the detached garage of her Sioux Center home as her studio.

Such limited spacing has meant a lot of set up and take down of scenes and finding other storage locations for her many props. While she enjoys outdoor settings, having an indoor setting is necessary for Iowa winters — and sometimes the cold of the fall and spring.

“I also have struggled with my studio being at home; it’s hard to separate home from work or work from home,” Vanden Brink said. “While the commute was great, not having the separation has caused some stress.”

Finding a 2,500-square-foot location allows Vanden Brink to have various scenes or backdrops set up at once so studio photography sessions can move from one location to the next within the studio instead of needing to wait for her to change the set up.

“I work with a lot of kids or have siblings come along to a newborn session; now there’s more space for children to play and even run around and get their energy out while a sibling is having their picture taken,” she said.

There’s also plenty of space to keep her photography props in one location.

The extra space to expand what her business can offer is another benefit as Vanden Brink considers the idea to offer fine arts portraits, prints and offering custom framing for everyone.

“I love details and with framing there are so many options,” she said. “I want to be able to provide a high quality product and fill a need I see in the community.”

As with her previous studio, the new space is open by appointment only.

“It’s different not having the studio just out my back door but really it’s only a few blocks away,” she said. “The couple of sessions I’ve had in here already were great. I just loved the space and the lighting; there’s a few tweaks I had to make but I see this space really fitting my needs as my business continues.”