2021 Print Collecting Initiative!

 

We are so excited and honored to announce that we are working with 2020 Critical Mass Finalist Granville Carroll this year on the Critical Mass Print Collecting Initiative. As part of this always-popular program, all 200 Finalists will receive a special-edition signed print of his image, “Selah, 2020”.

Granville is an innovative photographic artist who uses both digital and physical manipulations, as well as mixed media and cameraless photographic processes. While simultaneously addressing themes of representation and Blackness, he questions the role humanity plays in constructing our realities and our cosmic identity. He was recently interviewed on Silver Eye about his award-winning series, Because the Sun Hath Looked Upon Me – make sure to read the interview here! You can also read about his brand new work, Cosmotypes, in the Humble Arts Foundation feature and interview, Cosmological Photography as a Symbol of Power, Balance, and Origin Stories.

Granville Carroll: Selah, 2020

Granville Carroll is an educator and Afrofuturist photographer currently based in Rochester, NY. He received a BFA in photography from Arizona State University and a MFA in photography and related media from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Granville was recently named as one of 47 artists on the inaugural Silver List through the Silver Eye Center of Photography. His work has been exhibited in the United States and featured on multiple online platforms such as, Phases Mag, Artdoc Magazine, Humble Arts Foundation, Lenscratch, Photo-Emphasis, and Float Photo.

Because the Sun Hath Looked Upon Me is a photographic project examining identity construction on an individual, society, and cosmological level. It is a response to racial limitations and judgements thrust upon the African diaspora. I reimagine my identity through Afrofuturism by intersecting cosmology, philosophy, and spirituality. Using digital technology, I composite photographs to create new landscapes and self-portraits. The landscapes are my vision of the promised land; the ground references the physical world, the sky becomes a canvas for projection and imagination, and the horizon acts as a symbol for the liminal space between the physical and ethereal. They serve as points of rest and sanctuary. The portraits introduce a new way to envision my Black identity through the power of the universe. The theoretical concept of “liquid blackness” allows Blackness to be as fluid and unbounded as the cosmos. I construct a space where Blackness is immanent and expansive, using the Yoruba cosmological concept of àse and connecting it to the idea of dark matter; the force that holds the universe together. Àse is said to have come from Olódùmarè the Yoruba supreme deity, who is believed to be the source of creation. It is a force that breathes life into the universe bringing everything into existence, giving form to the formless and motion to the motionless. I look beyond the separation and limitation that occurs in racial stereotyping, positing that identity is more complex than just our physical representation.”

 

We also want to say a big thank you to our generous sponsors Hahnemühle + Pro Photo Supply, who make the Critical Mass Print Collecting Initiative possible! We are so excited to be printing Granville’s image on Hahnemühle’s Fine Art PhotoRag® 308 Paper for this project. Thank you, sponsors!