Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts

The MIT List Visual Arts Center sponsors the annual Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts. This writing contest is part of the Karmel Writing Prizes and is open to MIT undergraduate and graduate students.

The MIT List Visual Arts Center is pleased to sponsor the 2025 Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts. Visit the event page here.

 

2025 Vera List Prizes

First Prize Winner

Ari Peró, S.B. Urban Science & Planning with Computer Science and Music.

Read Politics of Visibility Contemporary Art as a Catalyst for Social Change

"Contemporary art has the capacity to reshape how we see ourselves and each other, challenging deeply rooted systems of dominance and subordination. But this potential can only be realized if we commit—as artists, audiences, and institutions—to fostering inclusivity at every level, because art does not merely reflect culture—it molds it. And in molding it, we mold ourselves."     –Ari Peró, Politics of Visibility Contemporary Art as a Catalyst for Social Change

Still showing a massive crowd of protestors wearing pink pussy hats and holding signs, filling the screen.

Jem Cohen, Birth of a Nation, 2017. Single-channel video, sound, 9:47 min. Image courtesy of the Video Data Bank. Included in List Projects: Civil Disobedience, MIT List Visual Arts Center.

Second Prize Winner

Kartik Chandra, a PhD candidate at MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Read Learning to Look / See Like a Scientist

"What does a cognitive scientist look like? It’s not the lab coats or the tweed jackets that distinguish us—no, nor the sneakers and jeans, either. If you ask me, I would say there is only one way to tell. It’s the wide eyes: the astonishment at meeting a mind, the enchantment of thought about thought, that gives us away."     –Kartik Chandra, Learning to Look / See Like a Scientist

A cream colored building behind a small body of water in the foreground. The reflecting image of the building is visible on the water.

The Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague, Netherlands. Courtesy the Mauritshuis

2024 Vera List Prizes

First Prize Winner

Sophia Chen, undergraduate student double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Design at MIT.

Read Black Cobwebs

"Each is a declaration: I am making portraits of my great grandparents and grandparents and parents out of my hair. But my hair is made out of my great grandparents and grandparents and parents. Each is also a question: What makes you? What are you made of? What do you make?"     –Sophia Chen, Black Cobwebs

Four white squares with black borders positioned in a grid shape on a white background. Each square depicts and image of figures made out of human hair.
Collection of blue-tinted photographs organized in rows on a white background. Each image is overlayed with human hair.

Second Prize Winner

Kartik Chandra, a PhD candidate at MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Read A Strange Thing Happens when You Live With A Work of Art

"The photograph that once stood for seeing motion in stillness now stands for seeing stillness in motion. The graduate student obsessed with beholding the moment has learned at last to bear the expanse of time."     –Kartik Chandra, A Strange Thing Happens when You Live With A Work of Art

Black and white photograph of an older woman feeding two hummingbirds out of her hands while a third flys near her forehead.
Four by three grid of still images of a horse running in motion.