PARIS PHOTO - APERTURE FOUNDATION
PHOTOBOOK AWARDS
PHOTOBOOK AWARDS WINNERS
PARIS PHOTO-APERTURE FOUNDATION
Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. Untitled by Sasha Phyars-Burgess (Capricious Publishing, New York) is the winner of $10,000 and the First PhotoBook award. The Banda Journal by Muhammad Fadli and Fatris MF (Jordan, jordan Édition, Indonesia) is the winner of PhotoBook of the Year. The selection for Photography Catalogue of the Year is What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999 by Russet Lederman and Olga Yatskevich (10×10 Photobooks, New York) and the award for Jurors’ Special Mention goes to Amma by Vasantha Yogananthan (Chose Commune, France).
A final jury in Paris selected this year’s winners. The jury included Aurélien Arbet (founder and Creative Director, Études), Daniel Blaufuks (Visual Artist), Taous R. Dahmani (Art Historian and Author), Fannie Escoulen (Head of the Photographic Department, Ministry of Culture, France), and Tatyana Franck (Director, Photo Elysée).
Three prizes are awarded in the following categories:
THE FIRST PHOTOBOOK PRIZE
A $10,000 prize will be awarded to the photographer(s)/artist(s) whose first finished, publicly available photobook is judged to be the best of the year. Twenty books from this category will be selected for the shortlist and presented to the Jury for the final selection.
THE PHOTOBOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE
This prize will be awarded to the photographer(s)/artist(s), and publisher responsible, for the photobook judged to be the best of the year. Ten books from this category will be selected for the shortlist and presented to the Jury for the final selection.
THE PHOTOGRAPHY CATALOGUE OF THE YEAR PRIZE
Awarded to the publication, publisher, and/or organizing institution responsible for the exhibition catalogue or museum publication judged to be the best of the year. Five books from this category will be selected for the shortlist and presented to the Jury for the final selection.
WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT
FIRST PHOTOBOOK
SASHA PHYARS-BURGESS
Untitled
Capricious Publishing, New York, USA
The winner of the FIRST PHOTOBOOK AWARD, Untitled by Sasha Phyars-Burgess (Capricious Publishing, New York), was selected by the jury as a prime example of the fresh perspective mentioned by Dahmani.
As a first-generation American born to Trinidadian parents, Phyars-Burgess explores her heritage and its complicated history through photography. Her images are by turns gentle and meditative, expressive and energetically vibrant. Shortlist jury member Darius Himes noted that this book offers a “takes a position, states an opinion, and doesn’t pull any punches.”
PHOTOBOOK OF THE YEAR
MUHAMMAD FADLI AND FATRIS MF
The Banda Journal
Jordan, jordan Édition, Jakarta, Indonesia
The winner of the PHOTOBOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD, The Banda Journal by photographer Muhammad Fadli and writer and folklore enthusiast Fatris MF presents the little-known story of the Indonesian Banda Islands, a tiny archipelago that has served an outsize role in global trade and the modern economy. Through incisive and engaging storytelling, the book connects a seemingly distant and brutal past with its contemporary consequences on the islands today.
Final juror Daniel Blaufuks notes that “The Banda Journal is very well-designed; very engaging— a book in which text and image are expertly intertwined, inviting return viewing and reading—and that offers us new perspectives from a region we don’t often have the opportunity to hear from artistically.”
PHOTOGRAPHY CATALOGUE OF THE YEAR
WHAT THEY SAW: HISTORICAL PHOTOBOOKS BY WOMEN, 1843–1999
Russet Lederman & Olga Yatskevich, éd.
10x10 Photobooks, New York, USA
The winner of the PHOTOGRAPHY CATALOGUE OF THE YEAR,
What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999 by Russet Lederman and Olga Yatskevich, features a selection of 250 photobooks, including traditional publications, from landmark titles to largely unknown works, as well as items not generally considered “books”—portfolios, personal albums, scrapbooks, and zines.
Fannie Escoulen comments that this project is important to recognize for its “extensive, original research and the contributions it makes to the history of photography,” noting that the photobook is historically grounded in the production of a female photographer, Anna Atkins. “In What They Saw, the design, the research and discoveries come together to make a great book,” Escoulen concludes.
JURORS’ SPECIAL MENTION
VASANTHA YOGANANTHAN
Amma
Chose Commune, Marseille, France
The final jury also chose to give a JURORS’ SPECIAL MENTION to Amma by Vasantha Yogananthan, the final volume of A Myth of Two Souls, a seven-book series initiated by the artist in 2016. In series, Yogananthan intervenes and reinterprets The Ramayana, creating his own modern retelling of this classic Hindu epic tale.
Final juror Tatyana Franck highlights the overall project as “a very persuasive, visionary, and committed journey by the artist; one which employed a wide-range of materials, formats, and approaches to storytelling over the life of the book series”—all of which is clearly manifest in this latest offering, Amma.