The 30 winners of the 2024 Creator Labs Photo Fund

The 2024 Creator Labs Photo Fund, created to financially support artists at pivotal moments in their careers, is made possible thanks to the collaboration between Google’s Creator Labs and Aperture. Born out the collaboration between Google’s Creator Labs and Aperture, the Creator Labs Photo Fund was created to financially support artists who will receive $6,000 each and a Google Pixel device.

This year the 30 winners delve into themes such as family archives, the effects of capitalism and colonialism, immigration and assimilation, self-love and identity, cultural and familial connections, heritage, and the transformation of ecosystems and landscapes. Representing a wide range of perspectives, this year’s photographers hail from different states of the USA, each bringing a unique vision to their work.

The 2024 photographers include Ana Rosa Marx, Andina Marie Osorio, Anh Nguyen, Brian Lau, Brayan Enriquez, Bruce Bennett, Camille Farrah Lenain, Chris Perez, Dom Marker, Farah Al Qasimi, Harlan Bozeman, Jaclyn Wright, Jennifer Sakai, Luke Austin, Mary Kang, Mateo Ruiz Gonzalez, Mathilde Mujanayi, Morganne Boulden, Naima Green, Nathan Olsen, Obi (Obinna Onyeka), Oye Diran, Pia Paulina Guilmoth, Rachel Elise Thomas, Rachelle Mozman Solano, Shravya Kag, Spandita Malik, Steven Molina Contreras, Tanner Pendleton, and Will Matsuda.

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Kacim, Lyon, 2022

In June of 1993, my family and I moved from our home on the prominent of Detroit, to the sprawling, spacious suburbs of Southfield. A location where mid-century modern homes are dominant, and where the Black residents would eventually become the dominant percentage as well. Over the years, our family home became the source of many celebrations, laughter, sibling rivalry, disagreements, and a place of mourning. A myriad of emotions attached to complicated memories of the past which inspired me to create this series titled, “Crowded House”. Crowded with memories that perpetually overlap, which have often taken place in the same rooms, under the same roof, at my family home of 29 years. For this project, I’ve used a digital camera to document, and a digital projector to display the pictures that were taken of me and my family from over the years, in the areas of my home where the pictures were initially taken. “Crowded House” is a visual continuation where I’m documenting and preserving my family history in a home where I’ve lived at for most of my life. This project is giving these forgotten images a new existence, because for so long, me and my family have archived images in various photo albums and photo boxes, but unfortunately, they become forgotten.This series serves as a duality of existence that there is a continuum in these spaces, which also, challenges stereotypes about the Black experience especially my experience of growing up in the suburbs of Southfield, Michigan in Metro Detroit. As I continue to work on this project, I’ve realized that placement is habitual. Like the piano that sits in the living room, and the wood paneling that has lined the family room for several years, while everything around us changes, there are certain aspects of ourselves that remain unmoved/unchanged.