2018 Aperture Summer Open: The Way We Live Now

How do photographs express a moment of rapid change in society, politics, beauty, and self-expression? Selected from more than one thousand submissions, the 2018 Aperture Summer Open, The Way We Live Now, features eighteen artists and photographers seeking to reckon with the currents and contradictions of life in the twenty-first century. Among the works are powerful chronicles of the crises of opioid addiction and mass incarceration; multilayered portrayals of Latinx, Native American, and queer communities; sweeping accounts of the built environment from Israel to China; and prismatic meditations on African American and diasporic culture, gender, and fashion. Together, the artists in the Summer Open are gathering evidence about how we define images and how images define our lives.

Curated by Siobhán Bohnacker, senior photo editor, the New Yorker; Brendan Embser, managing editor, Aperture magazine; Marvin Orellana, photo editor, New York magazine; and Antwaun Sargent, independent writer and critic

Featured Artists: Bubblegum Club / Diego Camposeco / Camila Falcão / Jillian Freyer / Jonathan Gardenhire / Lili Holzer-Glier / Roei Greenberg / Vincent Hung / Luther Konadu / Gowun Lee / Tyler Mitchell / Davide Monteleone / Philip Montgomery / Christian Sanna / Matthew Shain / Abdo Shanan / Shikeith / Maria Sturm