The top 20 winning submissions from the open call will be transformed into Amplifier-style artworks by some of Amplifier’s top artists such as Tracie Ching, Alex Albadree, and Mer Young, and shown in a special Getty Museum exhibition opening in mid-June 2022!
“Reconnecting with ____” is the 2022 theme of Getty’s award-winning Unshuttered photography program, which is a platform and community for teens to share their passion for photography and social justice advocacy. This project builds upon the success of Amplifier and Getty’s first joint project “In pursuit of ____”, which resulted in 1,500 submissions from students in 30 states. It asks teens, in the midst of their third academic year impacted by the novel coronavirus, who and/or what they are reconnecting with. Are they reconnecting with their friends, their culture, their family, nature, themselves, their schools, or their communities? Unshuttered is generously supported by the Genesis Inspiration Foundation.
“The Getty Museum is excited to launch this, our fourth iteration of Unshuttered, with the theme ‘Reconnecting with ____,’” says Elizabeth Escamilla, assistant director for education and public programs. “At the heart of the Unshuttered program is Getty’s mission to foster enjoyment and curiosity about art. We are committed to inspiring the next generation of creatives and museum visitors and want Unshuttered to inspire artistic curiosity among young people by inviting them to capture their ideas, feelings, and hopes.”
Escamilla continues, “The medium of photography has captured critical moments in history. The pandemic we are living through is one of those moments. The past few years have been difficult for everyone. Young people have had their plans rerouted, and moments and traditions that we may have taken for granted in the past, went unfulfilled. As the world reopens and young people begin to resume activities with friends, families, and their communities, we are inviting them to pause and reflect about what reconnecting means to them and capturing it in an image to share with the world. We can’t wait to see what is submitted as part of the open call with our partner, Amplifier.”
For this project, Amplifier has put together a multimedia lesson plan consisting of an original video lesson on portraiture by Amplifier’s Founder and Co-Creative Director Aaron Huey and a three-part lesson plan that guides classrooms through a circle practice for brainstorming, application of knowledge through practice, and finally presenting their submission-ready photographs to peers via a closing circle. These tools will be distributed to teachers of the one million students in the Education Amplifier network, which spans every state in the union.
Huey states, “The foundation of Amplifier’s most well-known art has always been great photography, so it’s a natural fit to work with students in the Getty network to run through our whole process that goes from a great photographic portrait to great movement art!”
In addition to this, Amplifier will also be releasing short videos from renowned photographers Josué Rivas, Hannah Reyes Morales, and Chip Thomas detailing additional best practices in portraiture, and how they personally would approach this theme. These videos will be released over the duration of the open call.
Amplifier’s Executive Director Emily Goulding adds, “At Amplifier, we amplify the most important movements of our time. That’s our mandate. Our young people’s ability to come up with creative solutions for self-expression, resilience, and reconnection during these trying times is a movement in and of itself. A quiet one, but a movement nonetheless. We are honored to be able to provide teens near and far with a platform for sharing their experiences of this once in a century moment.”
Users can find the instructional videos and accompanying lesson plan, and submit their photography to the open call, at Community.Amplifier.org. Users must register for an account prior to submitting, and must include a brief, 75-word written artist’s statement about their work(s).
Members of the public can also vote for their favorite artworks on the open call page.
Submit away and also tag us at @gettyunshuttered and @Amplifierart! The open call closes on April 1, 2022; winners will be contacted via email for additional details.
About Amplifier
Amplifier is a nonprofit design lab that makes art and media experiments to amplify the most important social movements of our time. Since 2015, we’ve commissioned more than 800 artists, distributed tens of millions of artworks, and sent free art to millions of students across the United States.