Judges
Dawn Whitmore
Special Projects Media Editor at National Geographic Society
Dawn is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the dynamics between cultural mythology and identity. Using soundscapes, photography, video, sculpture, painting, and drawing, she creates immersive spaces that invite the participant to enter an altered emotional landscape.
Her work has been shown in numerous venues, including the Mesa Museum of Contemporary Art (AZ), Hemphill Fine Arts Carroll Square Gallery (DC), Area 405 (MD), Spring Gallery (NY), Grizzly, Grizzly (PA), and featured during DC FotoWeek and the Dumbo Arts Festival in NYC. It has been published in the Guardian, the Virginia Quarterly Review, of NOTE Magazine, the Iowa Review, and the Washington Post.
Dawn is a recipient of DC Commission for the Art & Humanities Artist Fellowship Grants and an Individual Project grant.
When she’s not making work, Dawn is a freelance photo editor and also teaches students how to channel emotions using meditation and visual art.
Image credit: Charles Chessler
Carla Rhodes
Winner of last year’s MMEG Photo Competition
Carla is a wildlife conservation photographer who tells engaging and impactful photographic stories featuring the natural world.
She especially gravitates towards photographing misunderstood subjects, such as endangered Greater Adjutant storks and overlooked “common” species, who are no less fabulous than their exotic counterparts. Formerly a ventriloquist, Carla brings a plethora of unique skills to her photographic projects.
Photographing with passion and a sense of humor, her work has been published in The New York Times, Smithsonian, National Wildlife, Audubon, bioGraphic and the Guardian.
Ultimately, she aspires for her photographs to evoke emotion, educate viewers, and inspire positive change.
Afia Nathaniel
2003 MMEG Grantee, US-Canada Program
Pakistani-American filmmaker Afia loves pushing the boundaries of narrative storytelling. Her debut feature film Dukhtar (Daughter) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014 and wasPakistan’s Official Submission for Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards®. The film played to critical acclaim and rave reviews in over 20 countries and became the Critics’ Pick (Village Voice) and the People Magazine’s Pick of the Week. The film has won several awards, including the Adrienne Shelly award for Directors, Audience Award for Best Feature at Creteil, Best World Feature at Sonoma, and Best Director and Best Feature Film at South Asia International Film Festival.
Through her films, Afia explores pressing social justice issues of our time, often difficult ones, like child marriage, forced marriage, and fundamentalism in the context of patriarchal cultures and how it affects identity of the self and humanity. A notable LA Times film critic lauds Afia’s work as “a stunning, emotive work that takes to task oppressive patriarchy,” another one commenting on her style as “haunting…like a fairytale”.
