Unveil'd Photobook Award 2018

 
 

First Prize · Radici 

Fabrizio Albertini [Italy]  · Witty Kiwi

“Everything gets caught in the light. There’s no escaping. In the traces of the flesh of the land everything swells in the glow of our orbiting star. A garden is a place of focus and growth. Undulating in the soil of the earth things transform and birth. Things get made by the hands of undefined forms. The roots of wonder wander the expectations of life’s intuition. The kinds of things that can be made are up to imaginations and esteemed focus. The world spins forward full of its happenstance and coincidence…”

Shortlist

 

El Libro Supremo de la Suerte 

Rose Marie Cromwell [USA]  ·  tis Books / Light Work

"Cromwell pays homage to a Cuba that she grew to love over nearly a decade of returning to Havana to make pictures. Her work quickly acknowledges its subjective/self-reflexive nature through a non-linear narrative that alludes to life's ‘luck of the draw,’ exploring some of the very real complexities of contemporary Cuba (including her own presence as an artist coming-of-age). Through a lyrical sequence of images of everyday rituals, she captures a Cuba that is multi-layered and continues to defy expectations. Cromwell’s photographs take us to a place that is, perhaps most of all, profoundly human—and through this, she expresses her belief that even intimacy is political."

 

Jasper

Matthew Genitempo [USA] · Twin Palm Publishers

"Inspired by the life and work of the poet and land surveyor, Frank Stanford, these photographs of hermetic homes and men living in solitude were taken in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and Missouri.

By capturing the foggy landscapes, cluttered interiors, and rugged men that are tucked away in the dark woods, Jasper explores a fascination with running away from the everyday. The work bounces between fact and fiction, exhibiting the reality and myth of what it means to be truly apart from society.”

 

Twins 

Julie Hascoet [France]  ·  Poursuite Editions

“In 2017 Julie Hascoët was invited to participate in a residency by Carré d’Art in the city of Chartres de Bretagne. Benefiting from an annual programme with cartography as its central focus, and as part of a residency intended to highlight the local territory, Julie Hascoët’s project has extended these two themes by adding a nomadic dimension. Driven by a desire to shift the boundaries of the city of Chartres de Bretagne and give it a new form, she expanded her area of research to include four of its twin cities: Hassmersheim in Germany, Lwowek in Poland, Calarasi in Romania and Saint-Anthème in Puy-de-Dôme. From one season to the next, from one wander to another, she has revived the principles of twin cities with an entirely new, visual, perspective.”

 

Spin-Off

Luca Marianaccio [Italy] · Self-published

"A spin-off is a derivative work which maintains the same scenario of the original work while focussing on parallel events and secondary characters.

Spin-off is a collection of six visual narratives, compounded by a selection of photographs from (2010—2017). Six figures, accidentally encountered and rapidly captured in portraits, become subjects for fictional stories.

Each story is nothing but a fragment, a splinter, a projection of disintegrated pictures. It is subjectively decided through a random process in which physiognomy meets imagination.”

 

Futeral

Anna Orłowska [Poland] ·  Wschód Gallery/ Filmschool Łódź

"Futerał brings into focus the convoluted histories of several Polish castles and palaces: their transformations, architecture, intended purpose and actual uses.

As a result of the forced nationalisation campaign carried out in Poland following World War II, all castles and palaces were taken away from their rightful owners. The practice of adapting them to new uses intensified, marking the start of a new chapter for many buildings. Their functions changed over time, leaving visual traces in the appearances of these once-exquisite homes. The user replaced the owner, but the fascination with the vie de château never disappeared completely. The post-war authorities appropriated what they failed to destroy or exploit, making the palace a symbol of their prestige. Some properties were turned into museum-residences; in other instances, their form and contents were borrowed in part and transferred to newly constructed public buildings. Futerał is a perverse reconstruction of the contemporary status of these strategies, one that brings to light the transformative capabilities of architecture."

 


Nominations 

The Earth is Only a Little Dust Under Our Feet
Bego Antón [Spain] · Overlapse

Half-Light
Shahrzad Darafsheh [Iran] · Gnomic Book

Only the Fires Say
Alan Eglinton [UK] · Poursuite Editions

The Tree of Life is Eternally Green
Pascual Martínez & Vincent Sáez [Spain] · Overlapse

The Drake Equation
Andrew Phelps & Paul Kranzler [Austria] · Fountain Books Berlin

Rose of the Desert
Sophie Jane Stafford [UK] · Self-published

Upstate
Tema Stauffer [USA] · Daylight Books

The Restoration Will
Mayumi Suzuki [Italy] · Ceiba Editions

Gap in the Hedge
Dan Wood [UK] · Another Place Press

 

Panel

Tom Coleman · Founding Director · Unveil’d

Robert Darch · Photographer and Associate Curator · Unveil’d

Max Ferguson · Director of Photography, Port Magazine · Founder, Splash & Grab Magazine

Jessica Lennan · Photographer and Associate · Unveil’d

Lola Paprocka · Winner (2016) and Publisher · Palm* Studios

Hannah Watson · Publisher, Trolley Books · Director, TJ Boulting Gallery


Transparency Statement

The panel were unable to nominate an entry to the award should they benefit from its inclusion. Nominated or shortlisted titles which held a potential conflict secured a vote from which the relevant panel member was disqualified.