The Photographers’ Gallery has revealed details of the 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize exhibition, returning to London this spring with a shortlist that reflects the urgency, complexity and experimentation shaping photography today.
On view from 6th March to 7th June 2026, the exhibition brings together work by Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika G?sicka, Amak Mahmoodian and Rene Matic — four artists whose practices stretch the medium across documentary, installation, text, sound and moving image.
Established in 1996, the prize recognises an exhibition or publication that has made a significant contribution to photography over the past year. Over three decades, it has become one of the most influential awards in the field, consistently spotlighting artists pushing the boundaries of what photography can be — both technically and conceptually.
A Shortlist Shaped by Urgent Questions
This year’s nominees address some of the most pressing themes of contemporary life: exile and memory, identity and belonging, gender inequality, class, subculture, and the increasingly unstable boundary between fact and fiction.
Jane Evelyn Atwood is recognised for Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a revised bilingual reissue of her landmark project documenting women in prisons worldwide. Developed through a decade of immersive fieldwork across forty prisons in nine countries, the work remains painfully relevant as global female incarceration rates continue to rise. Atwood’s stark black-and-white images foreground systemic neglect while preserving the dignity and individuality of her subjects.
Weronika G?sicka’s Encyclopaedia approaches truth from a different angle. Drawing on deliberately fabricated entries hidden within reference books, she reconstructs these “trap” definitions using manipulated stock imagery and AI-generated visuals. The result is both playful and unsettling — a reminder that knowledge systems once assumed stable are increasingly porous.
Amak Mahmoodian’s One Hundred and Twenty Minutes explores exile through dreams. Developed over six years with collaborators from fourteen countries, the project combines photography, poetry, drawing and video to map emotional landscapes shaped by displacement. For Mahmoodian — who has lived in the UK since leaving Iran — dreaming becomes both refuge and bridge, a space where memory and identity remain fluid.
Rene Matic’s AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH turns inward to examine identity, class, family and subculture through diaristic photography and installation. Combining snapshots, film, sound and personal artefacts, Mati? builds intimate environments that feel both vulnerable and defiant — spaces where care and connection become forms of resistance.
Photography Beyond the Frame
Across the exhibition, photography operates less as a single medium than as a starting point. Documentary merges with fiction, still image with sound and text, personal narrative with broader social histories.
Shoair Mavlian, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, notes:
“The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2026 shortlist demonstrates the pertinent themes being investigated by photographers today. Whether their work was shown as a book or an exhibition, the shortlisted artists all invite us to reconsider how stories are told and who gets to tell them.”
The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced on 14th May 2026, with each shortlisted artist receiving £5,000. Following its London presentation, the exhibition will travel to the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt from September 2026 to January 2027.
Artist talks with Mahmoodian and Atwood will take place during the exhibition, with additional events to be announced.
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2026: 6th March – 7th June 2026, The Photographers’ Gallery
