Tommy Kha (born in Memphis, 1988) received his MFA in photography from Yale University,  New Haven, Connecticut. He is a 2021 Foam Talent, finalist for the 2021–22 Jerome Hill Artist  Fellowship and Hyères 2019 Photography Grand Prix, recipient of a 2019 Creative Review  Photography Annual and 2016 En Foco Photography Fellowship, and a former artist-in-residence  at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York; Light Work, Syracuse, New York; the  Camera Club of New York; and most recently, the International Studio and Curatorial Program,  Brooklyn. Kha was named one of forty-seven artists in the inaugural Silver List in 2021. His  work has been published in Foam, Creative Review, Dazed, Interview, McSweeney’s, Hyperallergic, Modern Painters, Slate, the Huffington Post, BUTT Magazine, BuzzFeed News, and Miranda July’s We Think Alone, and on the cover of Vice Magazine’s 2017 Photo Issue. He  has collaborated with the Billboard Creative in Los Angeles, and exhibited in numerous group  exhibitions including at Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York; the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art;  Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; Yongkang Lu Art, Shanghai; and Hyères Festival, France. His first solo show was at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon; it was followed by a solo exhibition at Baxter St at Camera Club of New York in 2019, where Kha was a 2018 workspace  resident. He appeared in Laurie Simmons’s 2018 narrative feature My Art. Kha currently teaches photography at the New School, New York. He lives and works between New York City and Memphis.

The Aperture and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, in partnership with the 7|G Foundation, supports US-based artists at critical junctures in their artistic development. Reconsidering equity across the country and in arts institutions, the award also supports the presentation of diverse opinions, as well as timely lens-based work that is relevant to today’s visual culture and society across a wide array of genres or approaches. The Next Step Award was initiated in 2020.