Leonard Suryajaya Wins 2026 CENTER Project Development Grant for 'Parting Gift'
Leonard Suryajaya has received CENTER's 2026 Project Development Grant for his initiative titled Parting Gift. This grant includes a $5,000 cash prize, a Winners Exhibition, involvement in Review Santa Fe, a public presentation, publication in LENSCRATCH, and opportunities for professional development seminars. Juror Shana Lopes, PhD, emphasized themes such as aging, family dynamics, grief, and climate change in the entries, particularly praising Parting Gift for its dynamic staged visuals. The project serves as a visual elegy for kinship amid migration, showcasing large-format family tableaux from Indonesia, rural Oregon, and Chicago, while addressing pivotal life moments. The funding will facilitate the creation of new tableaux and lead to a photobook. Suryajaya earned a BA and BFA from California State University, Fullerton, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Key facts
- Leonard Suryajaya received CENTER's 2026 Project Development Grant for his project Parting Gift.
- The grant includes a $5,000 cash award, a Winners Exhibition at CENTER, participation at Review Santa Fe, publication in LENSCRATCH, and inclusion in the CENTER Winners Gallery & Archive.
- Shana Lopes, PhD, Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was the juror.
- Parting Gift comprises staged 4×5 large-format family tableaux created across Indonesia, rural Oregon, and Chicago.
- The project depicts Indonesian relatives, white rural in-laws, and urban community members across weddings, pregnancy, illness, the loss of a newborn child, mourning, and aging.
- Grant funds will support new large-scale tableaux with Suryajaya's Chicago community and rural Oregon in-laws, leading to a photobook of collective portraiture.
- Exhibition print sizes range from 24×30 to 50×62.5 inches as archival inkjet prints.
- Suryajaya earned a BFA from California State University, Fullerton in 2013 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2017.
Entities
Artists
- Leonard Suryajaya
- Shana Lopes
- Dimitri Stefanov
- Jinyong Lian
Institutions
- CENTER
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- LENSCRATCH
- Review Santa Fe
- California State University, Fullerton
- School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Fotomuseum Winterthur
- Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago
- Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago
- Benaki Museum
- Photoforum Pasquart
- National Library, Singapore
- Wrightwood 659
- Now Gallery
- Aperture Gallery
- Barney Savage Gallery
- Shane Campbell Gallery
- Hyde Park Art Center
- The Block Museum
- Vontobel Art Collection
- Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection
- Mana Contemporary
- Center for Photography at Woodstock
- Aaron Siskind Foundation
- Artadia
- Robert Giard Foundation
- New Artist Society
- James Weinstein Memorial Fellowship
- Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Prize for Emerging Artist
- The Santo Foundation
- Chicago DCASE
Locations
- Chicago
- United States
- Indonesia
- Oregon
- San Francisco
- California
- Fullerton
- Winterthur
- Switzerland
- Greece
- Singapore
- London
- United Kingdom
- New York
- Woodstock