Jurors
2025 Critical Mass Prescreening Panel:
Alexa Becker — Photography Coach + Publishing Consultant — DGPh
Alexa is a freelance consultant and editor who advises and coaches photographers across all aspects of their practice. She spent more than a decade at the German photography and art book publisher Kehrer Verlag, gaining deep expertise in photobook design, production, and publishing PR and marketing, and continues to work with international publishers as a freelancer. Since 2008, Becker has reviewed portfolios at major international festivals including Photolucida, FotoFest, and the Rencontres d’Arles; served on competition juries; and led workshops on books and publishing. A member of the German Society for Photography (DGPh), she served on the jury of the Deutscher Fotobuchpreis in 2023 and 2025 and has been a regular Critical Mass reviewer since 2010.
Borbála Jász — Vice-Director — PH21 Gallery
Borbála is a curator, art historian, philosopher of art, and educator. She serves as vice-director and curator of PH21 Gallery Barcelona, formerly in Budapest, where she creates international exhibition and career opportunities for photographers worldwide. She earned a PhD in Philosophy and Art History from Eötvös Loránd University and is pursuing a second doctorate in Aesthetics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her scholarship emphasizes the cultural, historical, and conceptual contexts of photography. She also brings extensive experience working with collectors, with deep knowledge of the artistic, legal, and practical dimensions of collections. She supports artists with insight globally.
Crista Dix, Executive Director, Griffin Museum of Photography
Crista Dix is the Executive Director at the Griffin Museum of Photography, assuming that role in January of 2022 after two years as the Associate Director.
Before coming to the Griffin Museum in 2020 she spent fifteen years operating her own photography gallery, wall space creative, closing it in 2020 to make the move to New England and the Griffin. Having a career spanning many paths she has a background rooted in science, business and creative art. This well rounded experience provides a solid background for supporting the Griffin’s mission to encourage a broader understanding and appreciation of the visual, emotional and social impact of photographic art.
Danny Sanchez, Associate Director, Themes+Projects Gallery
Danny is the associate director at Themes+Projects gallery (formally Modernbook). Since 2006, he has helped to cultivate the fine art careers of the gallery’s emerging talent in topics such as editing and sequencing, strategic analysis of a body of work for the current marketplace, pricing, and editioning, etc. Outside the gallery, he had the pleasure of being a reviewer for Review Santa Fe, Medium Photo, and PhotoAlliance; he was invited to guest curate for the San Francisco Art Dealer’s Association and participated as a panelist for the San Francisco Artist Network. Sanchez is a Bay Area native and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from San Jose State University.
themes+projects.com | @themesandprojects
David Clifton-Strawn, Executive Director, Atlanta Photography Group
David Clifton-Strawn focuses his practice on exploring the traditional art of portraiture through a contemporary queer lens. Clifton-Strawn’s work has been exhibited across the United States, Canada, and Europe. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and several private collections. He was the recipient of the 2022-23 City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs Emerging Artist Award in photography.
He currently serves as the executive director of the Atlanta Photography Group.
Draženka Jalšić, Senior Curator, Koprivnica Museum — Croatia
Draženka is a Senior Curator at Koprivnica Museum, where she curates the museum’s art collections. She emphasizes graphic design, photography, and printing processes. She writes articles, critics, essays, and reviews on photography, the anthropology of photography, and visual communication. She writes on photography in professional and specialized magazines, portals, and online editions. Exhibition and portfolio reviews, essays, and selections on photography were in specialized websites and magazines in Europe and America. She is a member of the jury and photo curator in the Culture in Focus Annual Competition, the biennial of fine art photography Vizura, and the biennial of applied and commercial photography ProART.
Museum of Koprivnica | @djalsic
Elizabeth Avedon, Independent Curator + Photo Consultant — New York
Elizabeth is an independent curator and photo consultant, often contributing to L’Oeil de la Photographie. Former director of Photo-eye Gallery and Creative Director for the Gere Foundation, Elizabeth has received recognition for her curatorial work, exhibition design, and publishing projects, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Amon Carter Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and Art Institute of Chicago. She’s juried for the Leica Women Foto Project Awards, the Lucie Photo Book Awards and the Prix Carmignac Fondation Photojournalism Award in Paris. In 2017, Elizabeth received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Griffin Museum of Photography.
elizabethavedon.com | @elizabethavedon
Federico Estol, Artistic Director, San José Foto Festival – Uruguay
Federico is a Uruguayan photographer and artist. He works as a visual storyteller producing stories in Latin America; his long-term projects focus on the relationship between cultural identity, inequality, and social justice. In addition, he is the artistic director of the international festival SAN JOSÉ FOTO and editor of photobooks at El Ministerio Ediciones. He is represented by the East Wing Gallery.
Estol holds a bachelor’s degree in photography from UPC-Barcelona Tech University and a degree in popular education from MFAL Franciscan Multiversity. His awards include the Emergentes award at Encontros da Imagem festival (Portugal), IILA-FOTOGRAFIA award (Italy), Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist (USA), FELIFA best International photobook award (Argentina), Jury award at Lenzburg Photofestival (Switzerland), Latin American photobook award from Montevideo Center of Photography (Uruguay) and Expert Award of the Lishui Photography Museum (China).
sanjosefoto.uy | federicoestol.com
Gail Fletcher, Photo Editor, The Guardian – New York
Gail is a Photo Editor at The Guardian, where she develops and produces visual stories. She is on faculty at the International Center of Photography and was previously an Associate Photo Editor at National Geographic. She is originally from South Florida and holds a bachelor’s degree in history and government from Cornell University.
Joanne Junga Yang, Director, Korea International Photo Festival
Joanne Junga Yang is a globally active artistic director, curator, juror, lecturer, portfolio reviewer, and writer specializing in photography. Renowned for her leadership in contemporary photography, she has curated and directed numerous international exhibitions and festivals.
She currently serves as Artistic Director of the Daejeon International Photo Festival, the first international photography festival in southwestern Korea, organized by the Daejeon City Government. She is also the director and curator of Y&G Art Global, a contemporary art platform collaborating with galleries, magazines, and private museums worldwide.
Her curatorial work includes major events such as the Korea International Photo Festival, Dong Gang International Photography Festival, and Seoul Photo Festival. For her outstanding contributions, she received the Art and Culture Award for Curating from the Seoul Metropolitan Government and was appointed Director of its International Committee.
As a writer and critic, Joanne has contributed to leading publications including Korea Monthly Photography, PhotoDot, Monthly PhotoArt, and Art Now. Her acclaimed book, Photography, Curation, and Exhibition, became a bestseller in South Korea’s photography and media departments, cementing her role as both a thought leader and practitioner in the field.
Korea International Photo Festival
Katie Lydiatt, Gallery Programming Manager, SPAO Photographic Arts Centre
Katie Lydiatt (she/her) is a curator, researcher, and arts administrator in Ottawa, Canada. She holds an MA in Art History from Carleton University, as well as a Curatorial Studies Diploma from the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture at Carleton.
She has held positions at SAW Gallery and the Carleton University Art Gallery, and worked as a freelance researcher and editor on a number of photographic publications. She is currently the Gallery Manager at the SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre.
SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre
Ysabel Pinyol Blasi, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Monira Foundation
Ysabel Pinyol Blasi is the Executive Director and Curator at Monira Foundation. She formerly served as Curatorial Director at Mana Contemporary (Miami, Jersey City, and Chicago), where she co-founded Mana Residencies. Originally from Barcelona, she earned her M.Arch from ETSAB in 2006. Pinyol began collecting art over two decades ago, opening and directing her own gallery in Barcelona from 2007 to 2011.
Since joining Mana Contemporary in 2011, she has curated major exhibitions including Pablo Picasso: La Tauromaquia (2014) and The T’ang Horse: The Passions of Anthony Quinn (2016). Through Monira Residencies, she has supported artists like LaToya Ruby Frazier, Azikiwe Mohamed, and Machine Dazzle. Pinyol also curates internationally, with recent projects including Jonas Mekas: Open Archives (2023) and Youth at Mount Etna, Sicily (2023). In 2017, she contributed an essay to The Brooklyn Rail and frequently participates in panels and portfolio reviews for institutions such as RISD, Pratt, NJIT, NYFA, and Smack Mellon.
*Photolucida’s Program Director, Polly Gaillard, will also be on the prescreening team.
2026 Critical Mass Jurors – More Coming Soon!
