Harvard University’s Makeda Best Created the Photography Catalogue of the Year

Makeda Best, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums, recently received the prestigious Photography Catalogue of the Year award at the 2022 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards.

Dr. Best was honored for her 2021 publication Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970 (Harvard Art Museums, 2021), which explores how contemporary photographers have responded to the U.S. military’s impact on the domestic environment since the 1970s, a dynamic period for environmental activism as well as for photography. The catalog accompanied an expansive exhibition on view at the Harvard Art Museums from September 17, 2021 through January 16, 2022.

The catalog presents a lively range of voices at the intersection of art, environmentalism, militarism, photography, and politics. Alongside interviews with prominent contemporary artists working in the landscape photography tradition, are works by dozens of photographers.

Dr. Best is a graduate of Barnard College in New York City. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree and a master of fine arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

A video about the exhibition may be viewed below.