2017 Pacific Northwest Drawers

The 2017 Pacific Northwest Drawers highlighted the work of 60+ artists from the Pacific Northwest. Each artist showcased 10 original photographic prints or objects from a single body of work in a dedicated archival, flat file drawer at Blue Sky from April 2017 - March 2018.

The complete list of artists selected from more than 160 submissions includes:

Stephanie Ames, Kate Ampersand, Jory Aronson, Adam Bacher, Sandra Banister, Brett Becklund, Susan Bein, Rich Bergeman, Deborah Bergman, Zachary Burns, Kevin Clark, Jamila Clarke, Philip Coleman, Victor Dallons, Valeria Dávila Gronros, John DuBois, Hal Gage, Margo Geddes, Robert Gervais, Hazel Glass, Carole Glauber, Joseph Glode, Jon Gottshall, Lauren Grabelle, Michael Harris, Aaron Hartzell, Stewart Harvey, Jeff Hess, Ken Hochfeld, Nickolas Hurlbut, Melinda Hurst Frye, Will Keller, Lynne Kelman, Zachary Krahmer, Jeffery Krater, David Kressler, Stuart Allen Levy, Diana LoMeiHing, Jim Lommasson, Eric Macey, Marcia Mahoney, Philip Malkin, Lawrence Manning, Rachel McLain, Jason Moore, Ricardo Nagaoka, Loren Nelson, Leslie Peltz, Stan Raucher, Rich Rollins, Isaac Sachs, Kimberly Shavender, O’Hara Shipe, Gretta Siegel, Andrew Stanbridge, Deb Stoner, Nolan Streitberger, Barbara Strigel, David Tucker, Terri Warpinski, Alan Wieder, David Wyatt, A.J. Zelada, photographers from the Portland Grid Project

2017 Drawers Juror:

Mitra Abbaspour is an independent curator and scholar based in New York. From 2010–2014, she was Associate Curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, where she led a research initiative that drew together an international team of conservators and historians to explore the formation of photographic modernism in the twentieth century and to develop methods for an interdisciplinary study of photography. The book Object:Photo. Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949 and the digital humanities platform at MoMA are the results.

Abbaspour’s area of specialization is the history of photography in the Middle East and its role in defining the contemporary cultural landscape. She has authored numerous essays on contemporary photographers from Hassan Hajjaj to Shirana Shahbazi and Shirin Neshat. Before arriving in New York, Mitra was Assistant Curator and Museum Writer at UCR/California Museum of Photography. She has also taught at The Cooper Union, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and the University of California, Riverside.

Juror Mitra Abbaspour on her guiding principle through the selection process: “I seek finely crafted photographs that present layered ideas and subjects. I am equally interested in documentary, studio, and conceptual photographic practices and am especially pleased to find artists engaged with how the material and visual language of photography is evolving today.”