Hariban Award - International Collotype Competition 2026

This Award invites professionals and amateurs alike to submit black and white photographs for a chance to win a two-week residency in Kyoto, Japan, to collaborate with the master printers of Benrido.

Overview

Presented by Benrido, the Hariban Award combines a 170-year-old analogue technique with contemporary photography. The award was launched in 2014 with the aim of introducing artists and photographers to collotype, an alternative photographic process.

Glass plates have been used as collotype printing plates, which is why the award is called “Hariban” because “Hari” means glass plate, and “ban” means printing plate in Japanese. This Award invites professionals and amateurs alike to submit black and white photographs for a chance to win. The winners are carefully selected by a jury of international curators, publishers and artists in the field of photography. The Grand Prize Winner will be invited to a two-week residency in Kyoto, Japan, to collaborate with the master printers of Benrido.

Practical Info

Applicants can submit up to 12 images within one project. All submissions must be monochrome and must include an explanation of the project, year of production, image titles/captions, image location and series name.

The Grand Prize Recipient will receive a two-week residency in Kyoto, Japan, during which they will collaborate with the Master Printer of the Benrido Collotype Atelier during the stay in Kyoto. Working closely with printers, the selected photographer will produce eight collotype prints of the award-winning works. In addition, the recipient will learn about the origins of the collotype and how it is made through the Collotype Academy’s collotype hand-printing workshop. Prints produced during this residency will also be exhibited in a solo exhibition in the spring of the year following the residency. Their artwork will also be included in the official catalogue of the Hariban Award 2026, to be published in April 2027.

An applicant will be selected from the pool of submissions by each Juror as their nomination for the Juror’s Choice Award. The Juror’s Choice Award winners will receive a dedicated text by their respective nominators that will be printed and published along with a selection of their work in the official Hariban Award Catalogue. All Juror’s Choice Award winners will also receive copies of the limited-edition award catalogue for their personal use.

Plus, selected by Benrido CEO Takumi Suzuki, the Benrido Award winner will receive a dedicated text written by Mr. Suzuki and will have an image printed and published in collotype within the official Hariban Award catalogue. The Benrido Award winner will also receive a copy of the catalogue for their personal use.

After the winners of the Grand Prize, Juror’s Choice Award and Benrido Award have been selected, runners-up from the final round of judging will be given Honourable Mentions. An image of their submitted work will be printed and published within the official Hariban Award catalogue. The runners-up will also receive copies of the catalogue for their personal use. All finalists will receive a catalogue for the award printed in collotype and hand-bound by traditional binders in Kyoto, Japan. The catalogue will be published in 2027.

The jury is composed of Diane Dufour (Founder and artistic director of LE BAL in Paris), Erin O'Toole (Curator and Head of Photography, SFMOMA – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), KIM Jeong Eun (Founder of THE REFERENCE Seoul, Fair Director of T3 PHOTO ASIA Tokyo), and Leo Rongone (Photographer, Leica Supervisory Board Member, Moncler CEO).

About Benrido & Collotype

Founded in 1887, Benrido opened its collotype atelier in 1905 and has specialised in the collotype printing technique for over 120 years. Today, collotype studios are rare in the world, but Benrido continues to produce fine colour collotype prints and works to pass the technique on to the next generation.

Collotype is an alternative printing process that was invented in 1855 by the French engineer Alphonse Poitevin as a method of photographic fine art printing. Photographic prints of the 19th century had poor image preservability and gradually faded and discoloured over time. To compensate for this, various printing methods using pigments were devised; one of the established techniques among them was collotype. Not only did it offer a high degree of preservation, but it also made it possible to produce a large number of prints as printmaking once the printing plate is pigmented. Collotype was put into practice by Joseph Albert in Germany and then widely used throughout the world, later being introduced to Japan from the USA.