2017 Infinity Award: Artist's Book — Michael Christopher Brown, Libyan Sugar (Twin Palms, 2016)

Michael Christopher Brown is a photographer and filmmaker raised in the Skagit Valley, a farming community in Washington state. His recent work-in-progress explores the electronica music and youth scene in Havana, Cuba, and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A contributing photographer to publications such as National Geographic Magazine and The New York Times Magazine, Brown was subject of the 2012 HBO documentary Witness: Libya. His photographs were exhibited at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Instituto Cervantes (New York), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), the Annenberg Space for Photography, and the Brooklyn Museum. The project for which he receives the ICP Infinity Award—Libyan Sugar (2016)—explores ethical distance and the iconography of warfare while using a phone camera. A book on the series was released in 2016 by Twin Palms Publishers; a film and a mixed media installation will complete the project.