In the course of one Series winner along with two runners-up, as well as 20 single Image winners The British Journal of Photography panel emphasizes “the importance” given by the winners of this year’s contest.
This year this year, the BJP International Photography Award was been judged by an jury composed of curator and writer David Campany, Fotografiska New York’s Amanda Hajjar, Pier 24 Photography’s Allie H. Haeusslein and the BJP’s editorial director Izabela Radwanska Zhang. While the works shortlisted are spread across different countries, David Campany stated that the winners were all united by “the focus” each one has given towards their art. “In the end, photography is all about paying attention, and that is a lot easier said than done,” he says. The panel has decided on one Series winner with two runners-up, and 20 winning pieces in single Image category. The works explore a variety of themes that include selfhood, oddity motherhood, authorship, and self-sufficiency The 17 artists behind the 20 singles that won will be displayed in month in the Seen Fifteen gallery, London.
In the group of Single Image winners, Fernanda Liberti was the only one to submit an environmental portrait that captures Gliceria Tupinamba which is an Indigenous activist, leader and artist from Brazil. With the inclusion of an Tupinamba cape which is among the only seven in existence and all of them are held in European collections and museums The work is the opportunity to revive the ancient culture. Jessica Gianelli, whose self-portrait, To Be is a look at the ways Black women can take part in the process of rewriting their own stories by using images, is another Single Image winner.
In another article, focusing on the natural landscape of the pandemic Maggie Shannon explores the experience of childbirth during lockdown where social isolation restrictions meant the birthing process added a layer of difficulty. The photographer shares a surreal realist black and white image that was taken at the New Life Midwifery Birth Center located in Arcadia, California. Through a study of some archival photographs, Mia Salvato has reimagined an album of sexually explicit images of Black women that were believed to have been captured by an unidentified Cleveland policeman during the 1960s.
Hajar Benjida’s exploration of Atlanta’s famed stripclub Magic City, has been awarded the prize of the Series winner. When it’s Nice That talked about the project with Hajar regarding the series in the year 2020 The photographer explains that the series has given her the opportunity to study the way that dancers “approached their work, their sexuality and their ownership of their photos” and, most importantly, “their relationships to motherhood.”
Series the runner-up Bowei Yang offers an exploration of Chinese gay masculinity through The initiative If Spring Feels Like Anxiety. Using 4×5 analogue prints, the photographer dissects the connection between love and punishment through visual techniques that express the asphyxiating intimacy. Another runner-up in the Series, Argus Paul Estabrook, offers a unique look in one border town that lie directly to the south from North Korea in How to Draw a Line. In the project’s statement the photographer writes: “I felt a personal connection to this region that lies between two worlds. It is a place in which military camps, isolated settlements, tourist destinations can coexist, while keeping between the North and South which is still in conflict.”
British Journal of Photography will include both Yang and Estabrook’s works as a two-page addition this year. In the BJP International Photography Award Series winner, Hajar Benjida has been presented with the prestigious solo exhibit of his work at London Gallery, TJ Boulting in December.
