The Photographers’ Gallery has revealed exhibition details of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2025 taking place in London this Spring.
The 2025 exhibition will feature work by the shortlisted artists: Cristina De Middel, Rahim Fortune, Lindokuhle Sobekwa and Tarrah Krajnak. The exhibition is at The Photographers’ Gallery from 7th March until 15th June 2025.
The Prize identifies and rewards photographers for their projects – either exhibitions or books – that have made a significant contribution to photography over the past year. Over its 28-year history, the Prize has become renowned as one of the most important international awards for photographers, spotlighting outstanding and thought-provoking work.???
The 2025 shortlisted projects feature documentary photography, constructed images, selfportraiture, performance and family archives. Themes of migration, community and belonging, intergenerational traditions and rituals, family memories and histories are brought together in a powerful shortlist which highlights some of the influential work shown or published in Europe in the past year.??
Cristina De Middel explores the Central American migration route across Mexico and presents it as a heroic and daring journey. Rahim Fortune depicts Black American traditions and culture through a semi-autobiographical lens. Tarrah Krajnak reclaims and restages photographic art history by weaving her body into her performances. Lindokuhle Sobekwa explores memories of his sister and the implications of people going missing in South Africa through his deeply personal work.
The winner of the £30,000 Prize will be announced at an award ceremony at The Photographers’
Gallery on 15th May 2025, with the other finalists each receiving £5,000.
The 2025 shortlisted artists and projects are:??
Cristina De Middel (b. 1975, Spain) is shortlisted for the exhibition Journey to the Center at Les
Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France (1st July – 25th August 2024).
De Middel presents the Central American migration route across Mexico as an intrepid and brave
journey, rather than a desperate escape. Blending fiction and reality in a part-documentary part conceptual approach, De Middel borrows the atmosphere and structure of the Jules Verne book
Journey to the Center of the Earth.
The journey begins in Tapachula on the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala, and ends in Felicity, a small town in California which officially claims the absurd title ‘Center of the World’. The USA-Mexico border fence is visible from Felicity which adds to the dystopic disappointment of the journey, where the final destination is no more than a roadside tourist attraction. De Middel’s multi-layered narratives blend documentary photography, archival materials and constructed images to reflect the complexity of human migration today. The resulting work counters how migration is often portrayed simplistically in the media and official reports.???
Rahim Fortune (b. 1994, USA) is shortlisted for the book Hardtack, published by Loose Joints in 2024.???
In Hardtack, Fortune weaves documentary and personal history in a sincere expression of love for the American South – the region which has nourished him personally and creatively.?? He celebrates Black American traditions and culture, and shoots much of his work in Texas where he grew up. Fortune interrogates the historical relationship of his community to photography; deeply rooted in the landscape. The subjects of his striking portraits of coming-of-age traditions – young bull-riders, praise dancers and pageant queens – all inherit and gracefully embrace these community rituals. Fortune pays tribute to the rigour, discipline and creative flair of these cultural performances, alongside the intergenerational conversation between young people and elders handing down these traditions.
The book takes its title from hardtack – an unleavened bread made with flour, water and salt that was typical of the southern states of America during the Civil War era. With an extremely long shelf life, hardtack is long associated with survivalism and land migration. Fortune draws on this as a metaphor for the enduring nature of Black culture and traditions.
Tarrah Krajnak (b.1979, Peru) is shortlisted for the exhibition Shadowings. A Catalogue of Attitudes for Estranged Daughters at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam. (28th October 2023 – 3rd March 2024).??
The Peruvian-American artist bends time and blurs the lines between staged self-portraiture and performance, self and other, fact and fiction. The nominated exhibition brings together Krajnak’s work spanning twenty years. Krajnak consistently uses the camera as a research tool and takes a conceptual approach to the rematerialisation of photography.??
Krajnak’s own body often appears in her work. She is interested in how her body fits into the larger history of women’s poses in photography. With the shutter release in her hand, she takes control of the frame to emphasise the agency of the posing women, challenging ideas of beauty and affirming her idigenous body. Her production sites move between the studio, fieldwork and darkroom as she turns her lens to other photography, including work by the ‘masters’ of photography. She antagonises the received art historical canon by restaging and reclaiming these key works with her own body.
Lindokuhle Sobekwa (b, 1995, South Africa) is shortlisted for the book I carry Her photo with Me, published by MACK in 2024.???
The deeply personal project began when Sobekwa found a family portrait with his older sister Ziyanda’s face cut out. He found the photograph in his mother’s bible and it remains the only photograph he has of his sister. One day when the siblings were seven and thirteen, she chased him and he was hit by a car and badly injured.
Traumatised by the accident, Ziyanda disappeared hours later. She only returned a decade later, by which time she was very ill. In the intervening years, Sobekwa had become a photographer. When she came back, Sobekwa tried to take Ziyanda’s portrait, but stopped when she reacted angrily. Ziyanda died soon after.??
I carry Her photo with Me documents Sobekwa’s photographic search for the life his sister had lived and the people she had met. Combining photographs, handwritten notes and family snapshots in this scrapbook-like publication, Sobekwa explores the memory of his sister, his family history and the wider implications of disappearances in South Africa. The work is part of his wider practice on fragmentation, poverty and the long-reaching ramifications of apartheid and colonialism across all levels of South African society.??
Shoair Mavlian, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, said of the 2025 shortlist:???
“The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2025 shortlist highlights the strength of contemporary photography, with most of the work made in the last decade. Addressing topics
of migration, identity, and rethinking historical narratives, these projects all speak to the themes
which define our time.”Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2025, 7th March – 15th June 2025
The Photographers’ GalleryTickets – your ticket covers entry to all exhibitions on the day of your visit £10 / £7 concessions (members go free)
The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize history
Founded in 1996 by The Photographers’ Gallery, and now in its 29th year, the Prize has become one of
the most prestigious international arts awards and has launched and established the careers of many
photographers over the years. Previously known as the Citigroup Photography Prize, the Gallery has
been in collaboration with Deutsche Börse Group since 2005. In 2016 the Prize was renamed the
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, following the establishment of the Foundation as a
non-profit organisation, dedicated to collecting, exhibiting and promoting contemporary photography.
The winner of the 2024 Prize was Lebohang Kganye for the exhibition Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take
you home at Foam, Amsterdam in 2023. Past winners include: Samuel Fosso, Deana Lawson, Cao Fei,
Mohamed Bourouissa, Susan Meiselas, Luke Willis Thompson, Dana Lixenberg, Trevor Paglen, Juergen
Teller, Rineke Dijkstra, and Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin.
