Molayem ART Magazine International Art Magazine
A new book by Prix Pictet features recent work by 64 women on the theme of sustainability, from freefalling office workers to funeral customs in rural China
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Cristina De Middel: Una Piedra en el Camino, 2021
De Middel’s Journey to the Center series borrows the atmosphere and structure of the Jules Verne book Journey to the Centre of the Earth to present the Central American migration route across Mexico as a heroic and daring journey rather than as an act of flight. Collage: Women of the Prix Pictet Since 2008 is out on 6 December 2022 and available to pre-order through Gestalten now. All photographs: courtesy the artist/Prix Pictet/gestalten
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Alex Prager: Afternoon, 2021
American photographer Alex Prager’s recent work portrays the instability, chaos and turmoil of modern America. As she puts it: ‘The feeling that something was on the verge of breaking and from there everything else would collapse.’ You can see more in her gallery here
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Aletheia Casey: A Lost Place, 2020
Fiona Shields is head of photography at the Guardian and guest editor of the book. She says: ‘Collage is a rich collection of new and recent work by women photographers who have been nominated over the years for the Prix Pictet photography prize. The award recognises work centred around sustainability in all its interpretations, and the contributions here are a wonderful showcase of skill, artistry and imagination through all forms of photography curated as a tribute to these world class artists’
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Valérie Belin: Portrait of Gaby, 2020
Since 2008, women have been increasingly represented in prize shortlists, but Prix Pictet did not have its first female laureate until Valérie Belin in 2015. Belin describes this series as a ‘psychological exploration of a fictitious woman and an exploration of media and consumption in an age of hyper-abundance’
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Joana Choumali: HERE I STAND, 2022
This new work by Joana Choumali, the first African photographer to win the Prix Pictet, in 2019, is from her ongoing series Albahian. In it, she photographs her surroundings at dawn before layering the images with embroidery. She says: ‘I have come to understand that what I was hoping to find in my journeys abroad, I finally discovered in my own home’
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Sally Mann: Deep South, Untitled (Bridge on Tallahatchie), 1998
Collage features introductory essays by notable figures in photography, including Sally Mann, winner of the ninth Prix Pictet, in 2021. She says: ‘The photographer’s job is to synthesise, to make strong and poetic work from daily life.’ Each of the photographers featured in Collage does exactly that
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Yvonne de Rosa: Untitled (from the polyptych Inquisita), 2022
Yvonne de Rosa writes: ‘I held an artist residency with inmates from a juvenile detention centre in Naples. Inquisita is the visual memory of my dialogue with Artemisia Gentileschi, who lived in the area and whose art is now presented every day by those young guides, who consider her as a role model’
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Polly Braden: Barbeline with Elijah, 2021
British photographer Polly Braden’s series Holding the Baby portrays the impact of government austerity on single parents in Bristol, London and Liverpool. She says: ‘I was inspired and provoked by a United Nations report which said that single parents have been hardest hit by austerity. These collaborative photographs – some taken during lockdown by the parents themselves – capture the families’ sense of adventure, optimism, creativity and ambition, transcending their difficulties’
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Alice Mann: Drummies, 2019
The series Drummies captures the unique aspirational subculture surrounding the young all-female teams of drum majorettes in South Africa. As Mann puts it: ‘Being a drummie offers girls a sense of belonging and self-worth’
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Tomoko Kikuchi: Liangzi at the Funeral, 2022
Isabelle von Ribbentrop, executive director of the Prix Pictet, says: ‘In some cases, such as Tomoko Kikuchi’s photographs of funeral performers in rural China, shrouded in neon light, these images reveal their secrets slowly’
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Rena Effendi: Irina Kovalenko’s Home reduced to a Pile of Rubble, Zalissia, Ukraine, 2022
For this recent series, Azerbaijani photographer Rena Effendi visited several villages in Ukraine as residents began to return to the ruins of their homes. Locals call this street in Velyka Dymerka village ‘Armageddon Street’. Homes and yards were flattened when it was occupied by Russian forces from 13 to 31 March. But people persevered, sweeping the rooms and tending to their small plots
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Maja Daniels: On the Silence of Myth, 2019–22
This series focuses on the history and myth of 12-year-old Gertrud Svensdotter, accused of walking on water in Älvdalen, Sweden, in 1667. This began the mass hysteria and horror of Sweden’s witch hunts. ‘In this series, I use photography as a tool for myth-making. Oral traditions are often based on myths and folklore as a way of learning and sharing. However, myths are open to interpretation and refuse to be locked down. Photographs function similarly. Their core lies somewhere in the unseen or its silent associations’
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Sonja Braas, The Other Day, 2021
The Other Day appears to invite a sentimental, melancholic and nostalgic gaze on nature. We mourn the loss of our romantic ideals of landscape, yet we are the primary cause of planetary damage. As Braas says: ‘Nature devoid of human impact has vanished … wherever we go, we are already there’
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Julia Fullerton-Batten: Flexible Roxy, 2021
Julia Fullerton-Batten describes this image as a ‘serpentine dance of the human body’
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Alixandra Fazzina: Hargeisa, Somaliland Region of Somalia, 2018
Alixandra Fazzina’s moving and hard-hitting images are of refugees escaping Somalia, from the series Yemen Contraflow. Fazzina writes: ‘A parable for our times, untangling powerful meta-narratives that cloak the links between human smuggling and protracted conflict’
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Margaret Courtney-Clark: Caged Grass, 2019
Margaret Courtney-Clark says: ‘The geometry of the rectangle entraps humans, animals and plants in its defining limits’
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Lisa Oppenheim: Calendar (1819–1874), 2013
Lisa Oppenheim’s mysterious, camera-less process produces flowers of smoke. There have been many more female talents shortlisted in the Prix Pictet prize, as you can see in this gallery
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