Farren Van Wyk Receives the PhMuseum 2022 Women Photographers Grant 1st Prize

Through intimate portraits of her mixed-race family living in the Netherlands, the artist explores her South African and Dutch roots. Discover all the award-winning projects and read the jury's motivations.

For the 6th edition of our grant dedicated to female talents, an independent jury comprised of Alessia Glaviano (Head, Global Photo Vogue), Amanda Hajjar (Exhibitions Director, Fotografiska NY), Hoda Afshar (Photographer), Jane'a Johnson (Artistic Director, Foam) has assigned the €5,000 PhMuseum 2022 Women Photographers Grant Main Prize to Farren Van Wyk for her project Mixedness Is My Mythology. She will also get a featured interview in Vogue Italia. 

Born in South Africa and raised in the Netherlands, her pictures are all taken at her family farm in the Dutch countryside. Through her work, the artist deals with the awareness of having a double gaze that is as much South African as Western. Jane’a Johnson explains the choice on behalf of the jury: “Farren Van Wyk’s ‘Mixedness is my Mythology’ is a series of family portraits taken of Van Wyk's own mixed-race family—a family with South African and Dutch roots currently living in an idyllic Dutch farm. Through Van Wyk’s superb symbolic use of black and white photography, it explores the contradictions and connections of race, migration, apartheid and colonialism between South Africa and The Netherlands. While the images evoke the strong sense of intimacy, freedom, and serenity that can exist in Dutch rural life, they are also layered with signifiers that remind us of its paradoxes for a child of apartheid. Van Wyk’s skilful ability to layer her exploration of the ‘grey area’ aesthetically and metaphorically to evoke her inner double vision is remarkable, and it is what sealed the brilliance of this work”.

The €2,000-second prize was awarded to German photographer Victoria Jung and her project Fever Dream, which powerfully shows a lesser-known face of New Orleans through striking portraits of its inhabitants. The choice is explained by juror Alessia Glaviano: “We were all struck by Victoria Yung’s Fever Dream. In the description of the project I read about wanderers in search of a life free of convention, of a rebellious and unruly subculture, of a magical world and I’m amazed by Victoria's ability to transfer all this in the photographs. I have rarely seen such a strong correspondence between the feelings that a photograph is able to elicit and the subject matter of it. The images are beautiful, intense, and magical. They transport you to New Orleans and make you want to know more about each of the characters portrayed. Fever Dream is a breath of fresh air in the land where everything is possible, away from stereotypical representations and bigotry”.

The third prize of €1,000 was awarded to Sarah Pabst and her project Everyone in Me Is a Bird. Amanda Hajjar explains the jury’s decision: “Sarah Pabst’s Everyone in Me Is a Bird, is an intimate portrayal of grief, love, motherhood and, as the artist describes it, the “magic in the ordinary.” Pabst’s expert use of light and colour provides a cinematic quality to her work and her composition draws the viewer into her world. Her story of losing her brother and multiple pregnancies is juxtaposed against the journey of becoming a parent and the love for her children and family. Pabst’s work stood out; she is able to convey complex emotions through beautiful and unique techniques in unexpected portraits of nature and her everyday surroundings”.

The New Generation Prize offering €2,000 was assigned to Vietnamese photographer Vân-Nhi Nguyễn who presented her project As You Grow Older. Hoda Afshar explains the jury’s choice: “Vân-Nhi Nguyễn is an impressive emerging artist from Vietnam who documents the life of her people through a performative and collaborative process. In her series, As You Grow Older, she combines a traditional documentary aesthetic with contemporary staging techniques to evoke curiosity and meaning in the viewer. The images in this series are transformative—at once subtle and captivating—and challenge our perceptions of Vietnamese youth. Her playful staging of scenes and deliberate framing of her subjects all speak to Nguyễn's understanding of the inherent qualities of the medium of photography, and its limitations. I congratulate the artist on her creation”.

Six artists and their projects were extensively considered by the judges and eventually recognised with an Honourable Mention: The Right to Play by Lee-Ann Olwage, The Land of Promises by Youqine Lefèvre, The Crimson Thread by Erin Lee, The Motherhood That Wasn’t by Cecilia Sordi Campos, Falling by Gabby Laurent, and Eighteen Turns by Xiangyun Chen.

The jury also recognised three Honourable Mentions for the New Generation Prize category: The Gay Space Agency by Mackenzie Calle, Clayton Sisterhood Project by Laila Annmarie Stevens, The Ravens Tell You Where the Dead Are by Karoliina Kase.

Ngadi Smart’s Wata Na Life was selected by Noordelicht Photo Festival for an exhibition at the 2023 edition of their event. The curatorial team comprising Eefje Ludwig, Michelle Kasprzak, and Wim Melis explain how they handpicked the work that will be showcased in Groningen, The Netherlands, from 26 August to 26 November: “Ngadi Smart's photographs delve into the importance of water in the face of a changing climate. This urgent environmental issue is investigated in a series of vibrant collages. Smart’s photographs offer storylines and connections presenting a rich and beautiful view of the way Sierra Leoneans are dealing with the instability of climate change. The citizens of the Global South are the first to experience the consequences of the climate crisis and are often forced to invent solutions themselves, while corporate and governmental systems seem too rigid to be effective. Smart provides an evocative view on the resilience of Sierra Leoneans in the face of these evolving challenges”. 

Sara Bastai’s Ram was chosen by Phmuseum for a Solo Show at the Phmuseum Lab. Rocco Venezia, PhMuseum’s curator, explains how he and PhMuseum’s director Giuseppe Oliverio selected the work that will be exhibited in Bologna (Italy), in 2023: “RAM was highly valued for its several presentation opportunities and for its sophistication in dealing with such a current theme. Risen as a collaboration between Sara Bastai and Artificial Intelligence, the project is a fictional narrative of the artist's life, with her personal visual archive manipulated by AI. The captions generated by the algorithm after processing hundreds of images from Bastai's smartphone are the main source of inspiration to create new photographs. The induced dialogue between humans and machines feels at first dystopian and unfamiliar, but what emerges on a deeper analysis is a unique portrayal of matrices from our current society”.

Moreover, 6 artists were awarded with a 60-min free portfolio review with a mentor of their choice from the PhMuseum Education Program, recognising their talent and helping them to further develop their promising projects: Jahel Guerra for Vestidas de Viento (Dressed With the Wind), Victoria Li for Where Do We Belong, Atefe Moeini for ما (We), Pretika Menon for PakṣI (Bird), Mayra Camila Henriquez Littin for Linaje Dorado, Diana Larrea for I Left Too Soon.

A big thank you to all participants, jurors and organisations who supported this 6th edition of the grant. We will keep working to boost the careers of more talented female photographers in the coming years.

The grants program will return in January 2023 with the 11th edition of the PhMuseum Photography Grant. Stay tuned at phmuseum.com/grants!