Aperture, For Freedoms, and FREE THE WORK Partner to Launch Google’s Image Equity Fellowship

Today, in partnership with Google, For Freedoms, and FREE THE WORK, Aperture is announcing a six-month, application-based program that will award $20,000 in unrestricted funds to 20 selected creators in the US.

Applications are open to early-career artists who self-identify as a person of color, are based in the US, and are at least 18 years old. The awardees will develop visual bodies of work that present urgent, untold stories of their communities. In addition to a $20,000 award, each fellow will receive support exhibiting their completed projects in-person and online as well as mentorship and dedicated workshops with industry experts.

Led by Google as part of their Real Tone initiative, the fellowship is a continuation of the company’s efforts to more accurately and beautifully represent communities of color on Pixel 6 and in Google Photos. A key part of their work on Real Tone was made possible by partnering with image experts—renowned photographers, cinematographers, colorists, and directors—whose work has uplifted and expanded our collective understanding of whose stories need to be told. This emphasis on community-driven storytelling is the foundation of the inaugural Image Equity Fellowship.

“We are thrilled to partner with Google on the Image Equity Fellowship,” says Aperture’s executive director, Sarah Meister. “This is an extraordinary opportunity to further Aperture’s support of the photography community by collaborating with a group of talented artists alongside renowned mentors. Together, they will be showing us how linking technology with cultural partnerships can create a path toward a more expansive future for photography.”

In addition to Google, Aperture is proud to partner with For Freedoms, an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation. And FREE THE WORK, a non-profit organization committed to addressing the lack of diversity in media and to creating opportunities for a global workforce of underrepresented creators behind the lens in TV, film, and marketing. Together, we have selected five mentors to guide the twenty awardees: Lebanese filmmaker and photographer Ahmed Klink; American artist and 2016 Guggenheim Fellow Lyle Ashton Harris; photographer and documentarian Bee Walker; multi-hyphenate creative Mahaneela; and Rujeko Hockley, Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Submit now to the Image Equity Fellowship, open until July 18, 2022.