Hasselblad Foundation and Hasselblad camera company initiate long-term collaboration

The 2023 Hasselblad Award Laureate: Carrie Mae Weems

The annual Hasselblad award is an international photography prize, considered largely as the Nobel Prize of photography. One winner is selected from a short list of candidates, whom the Hasselblad Foundation’s award committee recognizes for their major achievements in the art and community of photography. The committee therefore awards the 2023 Hasselblad Award to Carrie Mae Weems for her decades of work capturing the struggle for equality and painful history that African Americans have experienced, all under the undeniably captivating power of her photography.

Carrie Mae Weems now joins an exclusive group of previous Hasselblad Award laureates, including Ansel Adams (1981), Cindy Sherman (1994), and Hiroshi Sugimoto (2001). At an award ceremony in Gothenburg, Sweden on 13 October 2023, she will have her work displayed in exhibition, receive SEK 2 million, a gold medal, and a diploma. And with the start of their long-term collaboration, Ms. Weems will receive the latest medium format camera and lenses from Gothenburg-based camera company Hasselblad.

A Collaborative Partnership
While the iconic camera maker Hasselblad and the Hasselblad Foundation share their founder’s namesake, the two organizations have not previously initiated a formal collaboration. However, with the 2022 Hasselblad Award winner Dayanita Singh receiving the Hasselblad X2D 100C and 907X 50C, the Hasselblad camera company and the Hasselblad Foundation are pleased to announce this continued tradition for all future Hasselblad Award winners.

"We are inspired by Carrie Mae Weems’s impactful contributions to the art of photography," remarked Bronius Rudnickas, Marketing Manager at Hasselblad. "Today, we are honoured to award Ms. Weems with her very own Hasselblad medium format cameras and lenses, and we are honoured to be part of her journey moving forward. With this announcement, we are also incredibly proud to begin our extended partnership with the Hasselblad Foundation, and we look forward to the road ahead together."