Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2024 at The Photographers' Gallery

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize returns at The Photographers' Gallery, London, for 2024 with shortlisted artists Valie Export, Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad, Lebohang Kganye and Hrair Sarkissian.

Overview

Now in its 28th year, the Prize has become renowned as one of the most important international awards for photographers, spotlighting outstanding, innovative and thought-provoking work. This year’s edition marks the 20th anniversary of Deutsche Börse’s partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery. The 2024 shortlisted artists and their projects all critically engage with urgent concerns, from the remnants of war and conflict, experiences of diasporic communities and decolonisation, to contested land, heritage, equality and gender. Together these artists demonstrate photography’s unique capacity to reveal what is invisible, forgotten or marginalised and imagine a path to redress.

Valie Export uses photography as a tool for her radical performances and critical examination of women’s roles. Together Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad invite us to explore hidden layers of meaning beneath the surface with their collaboration of photography and traditional painting. Lebohang Kganye draws on her personal and collective histories before, during and after apartheid to examine and re-enact notions of home, heritage and belonging. By intricately weaving personal and political narratives, Hrair Sarkissian explores themes of conflict, displacement and memory. After the exhibition in London, the work will be on show at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt, Germany, from 15 June to 22 September 2024. The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced at an award ceremony at The Photographers’ Gallery on 16 May 2024, with the other finalists each receiving £5,000. Full details of the Prize exhibition and award evening will be announced in Spring 2024.

A fully illustrated catalogue, in English and German, with newly commissioned essays on the shortlisted artists and their nominated projects will be on sale in The Photographers’ Gallery shop and online. Rebecca Schneider, Professor at Brown University, USA, writes about the work of Valie Export. Inderpal Grewal, author and Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, writes about the collaboration between Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad. Curator and lecturer Portia Malatjie explores the work of Lebohang Kganye. Cultural historian and critic Anna Marazuela Kim writes about Hrair Sarkissian