Google Supports Emerging Artists with New Installment of Creator Labs
In partnership with SN37, Google's Creator Labs highlight nine young photographers and filmmakers with unique perspectives and ideas.
In the latest series from of work Creator Labs, Google and SN37 have teamed up to support and showcase nine young artists as they tackle today's sociopolitical landscape. Each artist used their prefer medium, whether photography or film, to tell a story from their own unique perspective. Each artists' work celebrates a lesser told narrative, exposing new concepts and ideas that deserve to be seen at the surface. By arming each artist with a Google Pixel to capture their subjectsm, Creator Labs helps these rising stars further their work and careers.
Below, L'OFFICIEL looks at some of the pieces from the Creator Lab artists: Anthony Prince Leslie, Natalia Mantini, Kennedi Carter, Andrew Thomas Huang, Tim Kellner, June Canedo, MaryV, Mayan Toledano, and Josh Goldenberg (Glassface).
Taking a cue from artist Hank Willis, Anthony Prince Leslie celebrates the message of Jamaica's coat of arms, "Out of One, We are Many." His performance piece "We Are One" emphasizes the important of unity.
Natalia Mantini took to the outdoors for her project "Healing Towards Progress," which explores the natural world's role in self-care in a time of such instability. She explains, "I believe and practice self-care and I see it as a crucial step in progress and expansion, both collectively and independently."
In "Softest Place on Earth," Kennedi Carter's series of images revels in the joy of queer Black relationships. "Trauma can be an element of queer experience," says the artist, "but rarely do I see fictional depictions of Black queer love that leave me feeling warm inside."
Andrew Thomas Huang's "Ancestors" leans on his identity as queer Chinese-American man with a self-portrait boasting Taoist scripture and references to Chinese culture. "I am interpreting the idea of queer Asian American progress as a reconnection to heritage," says Huang.
Tim Kellner's photographs in "Distant" dive into man's connection (or lack thereof) to the natural world over the last year in quarantine. After struggling with his own fe."lings of isolation, Kellner explains that with his new project "the feeling of new possibilites, idea, and progress return to me"
In "We Live Above & Below Danger," June Canedo comments on immigration and the state of domestic laborers in the apparel industry as a contextual means of creating and defining culture.
Artist MaryV's work explore the mother-daughter relationship through subject Becca and Aeron. The ladies don Hanboks, traditional Korean dresses, to depict the cultural ties that forge such strong familial bonds.
Mayan Toledano's project "Mothers" also explores the idea of motherhood by capturing a young mom and her daughter in their home. "This sacred, unbreakable relationship between mother and daughter gives us hope for the future," notes Toledano. "The passing down and nuturing of love from one generation to the next."
Under his professional psedonym Glassface, filmmaker Josh Goldenberg continues his "Ultradreamers" series which showcasing a musician's process of cultivating their creative ideas and transforming them into a finished product.
