As the prestigious award marks its 30th anniversary, this year’s nominees consider hidden human labour, life in war-torn Ukraine and the Buddhist concept of rebirth ‘Psychoanalytic ideas’ … from the series The Fold (2019-25) anly – Jacques Chirac ies and rewards artists for an exhibition or book in Europe that has made a significant contribution to photography in the past 12 months. Salvatore Vitale (born 1986, Palermo, Italy) is shortlisted for the exhibition Sabotage at Photo Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland. In Sabotage, Vitale examines the hidden human labour sustaining the digital economy, questioning the systems of automation, surveillance and algorithmic control that increasingly shape contemporary working conditions ’All, It’s a Sabotage, 2022, from the series Death by GPS, 2022–26 Vitale exposes a central contradiction of technological progress: behind the promise of automation lies a vast workforce whose labour is largely invisible, precarious and subject to continuous monitoring d through collaborations with South African freelancers, Sabotage investigates how contemporary digital infrastructures reproduce historical and colonial patterns of extraction, exploitation and inequality the notion of sabotage, Vitale explores possibilities of resistance, refusal and agency within systems designed to regulate and control human labour.
Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations, Sabotage connects the invisible processes of digital labour to their material consequences, revealing a system driven by productivity, exhaustion and obsolescence har (born 1983, Tehran, Iran) is shortlisted for the exhibition Performing the Invisible at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, France. The Fold, at the centre of the exhibition, is a sustained investigation into the enduring legacy of colonial photographic practice, and the ways in which it continues to shape how bodies, particularly veiled Islamic bodies, are seen and consumed ani Gallery, Australia/Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac/Photo Carlos Ayesta Working with the archive of French psychiatrist and photographer Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault (1872–1934), Afshar encountered thousands of photographs he made in Morocco ani Gallery, Australia/Hoda Afshar Through photographing veiled women, and occasionally men, de Clérambault explored his psychoanalytic ideas around covering and fantasy tist and Milani Gallery, Australia Using the recurring motif of the mirror, Afshar disrupts this historical archive and shifts the usual focus to turn things around, making the viewer, or the act of looking itself, the object of investigation and knowledge. She questions the violence of the gaze and exposes deeper issues concerning the nature of vision and control tist and Milani Gallery, Australia Sasha Kurmaz (born 1986, Kyiv, Ukraine) is shortlisted for the publication Red Horse, published by Éditions Images Vevey.
Kurmaz began the project following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 ristic journey into war tells the deeply personal story of Kurmaz’s life, alongside the lives of those around him who are struggling to survive constant danger. The 800-page visual diary brings together handmade collages in a first-hand account of life in Ukraine perpetually reshaped by the destructive force of war documentary photographs, notes, drawings, newspaper cuttings and found objects to capture his own experiences and those of the people around him e his thoughts, fears and pain, the accumulation of these fragile collages questions how prolonged states of emergency and ongoing war affect individuals, society, democratic systems and public spaces. Red Horse is an urgent reflection on how war reshapes lives and our collective memory, while asking what it means to make art in times of conflict he Face of Desire is Loss, Bvlgari Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2026 Lotus L Kang (born 1985, Toronto, Canada) is shortlisted for the exhibition The Face of Desire is Loss.
Combining photography, film and sculpture, this immersive installation looks at how bodies change over time, what we remember and what gets lost along the way i, Commonwealth and Council, Franz Kaka, Kukje Gallery and Esther Schipper Berlin/Paris/Seoul/Andrea Rossetti Lotus L Kang – The Face of Desire is Loss, Bvlgari Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2026 The exhibition’s title is drawn from Thresholes (2020), a poetry collection by American writer Lara Mimosa Montes. Echoing Montes’ writing, Kang’s installation lives in the space in between, where time and the body are fluid and constantly changing i, Commonwealth and Council, Franz Kaka, Kukje Gallery and Esther Schipper Berlin/Paris/Seoul/Andrea Rossetti Lotus L Kang – The Face of Desire is Loss, Bvlgari Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2026 Lengths of unfixed photographic film, which Kang calls ‘skins’, are suspended from steel joists. They respond to light and humidity, developing bruises, blood and bile-like hues over time.
Sculptures of tatami mats and cast objects in plaster, bronze and fibreglass of crying birds and kelp knots evoke the body in states of rest, dream, recovery and death. Together, they symbolise th
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