OUR SHORTLIST IS NOW ANNOUNCED!
642 projects, 12 shortlisted, 6 finalists: we would like to congratulate the winners who have been selected among so many talented artists.
FRAMING SOCIETY
ALASTAIR PHILIP WIPER
Series: PLEASURE POINTS
Pleasure Points is a journey under the covers of the past, present and future of California’s pleasure product industry. Pleasure Points is an exploration of sex doll workshops, family-run dildo factories and virtual reality porn sets that shines a light on the ways people choose to take control of their sex lives and their sexual identities. Every doll is completely customisable, from hair to lips, to nipples, to vagina (there are more than 10 types). ” … a lot of people are lonely” […] These products allow people to take control of where and when they get their sexual satisfaction, and new products are increasing connectivity so that couples can control each other’s products remotely, allowing interaction over long distances. As more people watch porn (there were 33.5 billion visits to Pornhub alone in 2018), use dildos and interact with sex robots, more people are gaining control of a part of their life that up til now has been dependent on a relationship with another human.
HASHEM SHAKERI
Series: CAST OUT OF HEAVEN
The current U.S. sanctions against Iran and the subsequent drastic drop in the value of the Iranian currency are fueling skyrocketing housing prices in Iran. This is forcing many Tehraners to leave the capital without any intention of coming back ever again. The Mehr Housing Project initiated in 2007 as the largest state-funded housing project in the history of Iran. What followed was rapid urban population growth and the construction of new towns. Parand, Pardis and Hashtgerd, three newly constructed towns on the margins of Tehran, are huge islands of soaring skyscrapers and indiscriminately developed apartments filled with crowds of people and cars. These are notorious for social pathologies, like high rates of suicide among pupils and drug abuse; Sleep-deprived newcomers leave early in the morning to get to their workplaces in the capital over daily commuting distances of 2-3 hours. Here is the land of those cast out of their heaven – the metropolitan Tehran. And they all share the bitterness of the fall.
FRAMING VISION
STIG MARLON WESTON
Series: EMPIRICAL
“ Looking at the scientific way of seeing the world I use photographic techniques to collect visual statistical material that can show climate change. The photographs are all made as camera-less lumen prints where light-sensitive analogue photo paper is exposed outdoors, catching imprints of the waterways, soil and plant life of the jungle. The details of the rainforest landscape reflect what we are willing to read into them and our knowledge of how to interpret these visual markers. The series of images are made to show the variation between the rainforest inside a nature reserve and other places where the forest is being cut down, dammed up or soiled with chemical spills. All prints are original photo paper that has been at the site, exposed in the outdoor sun and developed with a homemade developer based on a mix of local coffee beans and acai berries and guarana.
UTE BEHREND
Series: BACK TO NATURE
“When I was bored during the summer holidays and examined the holiday home we had rented, a bathmat caught my eye. It was a mat that you put into the tub so that you could get in and out without any danger. It was composed of many small transparent plastic pieces that should look like pebbles. “Oh,” I thought, “you should feel in the bathtub as if you were lying in a stream where you can see and feel the pebbles. Beautiful, clean stones in clear water”. It seemed to be a little absurd to satisfy the longing for nature in this way, while nature is being destroyed all over the world. The human being, who sees himself as the highest living being, places himself above every animal and every plant. Don’t plants also have an inherent value? Regardless of whether they are useful to someone or someone ascribes meaning to them? I have transferred ordinary everyday objects, which are imitations of plants, stones and animals, to places where one would expect their real pendants. As a symbol for “that which remains” when everything else has been destroyed. Not knowing that they are simulacra, they raise the same questions that preoccupy all of us: Where do I come from? Where should I go? How much time do I still have?”
FRAMING IDENTITY
IRA LUPU
Series: ON DREAMS AND SCREENS
“On Dreams and Screens” investigates how intimate and real you can get through a web camera, and what emotional patterns are likely to be formed after hours spent in the online fantasy machine. It scrutinizes the liminal space where a real body transitions into a virtual one, and vice versa. Online webcam models turn out to be experts in the field of screen-based human bonding — their livelihood depends on it. “I focused on a group of seven Ukrainian and Ukrainian-American girls with camping experience. I photographed and interviewed them in moments of self-contemplation — in the places of their childhood, favourite nature spots, or at home. What have they learned? Who are they? What do they have to teach us? Ultimately, I seek to understand the paradoxical relationship of intimacy and distance, connection and disconnection, in a world newly transformed. How do these relationships affect a person’s self-image and real-life perception? Who do we become when we exchange desires over a keyboard?”
CEMRE YESIL GÖNENLI
Series: HAYAL & HAKİKAT: A HANDBOOK OF FORGIVENESS & A HANDBOOK OF PUNISHMENT
Hayal & Hakikat (translated as Dream & Fact), by Cemre Yeşil Gönenli, takes the form of two booklets — A Handbook of Forgiveness and A Handbook of Punishment — which can be viewed side by side. Abdul Hamid II “[…] was obsessed with crime fiction and in the 25th year of his reign, he ordered all murder convicts to be photographed with their hands visible, in preparation for a planned amnesty. He had been moved by pseudo-scientific information. He had read in a crime novel that “any criminal with a thumb joint longer than the index finger joint, is inclined to murder.” They are presented in the book in categories – those chained with iron bracelets and those without. The ‘Dream’ of the title refers to the inmates’ desire for release and the “Fact’, their actual circumstances. The fate of the individual prisoners remains unknown as there is no record of the verdict of Abdul Hamid II after viewing the hands awaiting forgiveness. Hayal and Hakikat are dedicated to those in contemporary times who are arbitrarily detained in today’s Turkey.
