Deutsche Börse Photography and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) award prizes for academic writing on photography

• Dr Charlotte Bruns receives the “Thinking Photography” research award
• Jackson Davidow is awarded the prize for innovative journalism “Writing Photography”

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) have jointly awarded their two prizes for research and journalism in the field of photography. The awards recognise contributions that enrich and promote the academic dialogue on the medium of photography.

Research award “Thinking Photography”

Dr. Charlotte Bruns, substitute professor at the Institute for Media Research, Chemnitz University of Technology, receives the DGPh research award “Thinking Photography” for her dissertation “Spatial images and their ways of use. On the organisation of seeing in stereophotography”. In it, Bruns traces an extensive history of seeing as a sensory experience using stereographic photography from 1900 to present. “Thinking Photography” is endowed with €3,000 and honours publications from the field of photographic theory and history that expand the topic area with important approaches from the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences.

The jury justifies its selection as follows: “With this large-scale study, Charlotte Bruns presents a stylistically and scientifically outstanding work. She dedicates herself to a historical topic like stereophotography and abstracts the associated visual and spatial experiences up to the use of virtual reality glasses. This way, she is forming a bridge to the present. She always remains consistent, explores new sources, opens up new perspectives and therefore makes an important contribution to research.”

Award for innovative journalism “Writing Photography”

The “Writing Photography” award goes to Jackson Davidow, Curatorial Fellow in Photography at the Harvard Art Museum, Boston, USA, for his essay “Against Our Vanishing. Cruising the queer archives of a disappeared Boston”. This award recognises an essay that uses photographic traces to explore the queer community in Boston and its (in)visibility. “Writing Photography” is an award for innovative journalism that honours written formats such as essays, blog posts or columns that combine text and photographic material in a creative way. The prize is endowed with €1,000.

In its statement, the jury writes: “It is undeniable that photographs are always a testimony to their time. But to what extent are pictures from past times not only documentation, but also a vehicle against forgetting? Davidow addresses this question in a vivid and highly sensitive way when he tracks down Nan Goldin’s early motifs in Boston, for example. Linguistically accentuated, this particular essay focuses on the queer community and its photographic representation, providing a wonderfully moving approach to dealing with the medium.”

The jury gives two honourable mentions: One goes to Enis Demirer for his master thesis “Cruising Maryam Sahinyan’s photographic archive: Intertwining meanings of the archive between the personal and the public” (Thinking Photography). The other one goes to Maria Garth for her essay “Soviet Avant-Gardes and Socialist Realism. Women Photographers Bridging the Divide, 1930s–1960s” (Writing Photography).

The jury

The winners of the two prizes are selected every two years by an international jury. This year’s jury members are: Dr. Carolin Görgen, Associate Professor, Sorbonne Université, Paris; Alexandra König, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation; Renée Mussai, Curator and Researcher, Autograph, London and Miriam Zlobinski, Member of the Board of the History and Archives Section, DGPh.

The award ceremony will take place at a public event in the coming months, more information will follow.

More information on the awards and the award-winning works as well as a selection of press photos can be found here. We will be happy to send you images in printable quality on request.