A new online exhibition will look to portraiture’s empathetic potential, to be curated by Kris Graves, Roula Seikaly, and Jon Feinstein. This will be the first in a series of exhibitions benefitting social justice causes.

What can a portrait tell us about the subject? What does it mean to fall under someone's gaze? Can the dynamics of power be equal for both the artist and subject? What is the audience's role in establishing this sense of power? Does the word “subject” imply a power imbalance?

Photographic portraiture has a long history of reinforcing problematic or false narratives. This discussion and the previous questions are centuries old. They’ve been dissected by scholars from Susan Sontag to Teju Cole. They frame a panoptic eye in academic critiques and beyond, yet portraiture goes on - sometimes continuing in harmful directions, other times with critical awareness.

For Humble’s next open call, we want to see your photographic portraits as tools of empathy: images that offer an equal exchange between the photographer and the photographed. Portraits that may not reveal “truth,” but demonstrate a new and open engagement. A way of looking “with,” rather than “at.”

Interpret this however you like.

Deadline: August 10th, 2020