Summary
- The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2027 shortlist features four artists.
- They are Afshar, Kang, Kurmaz and Vitale.
- The winner will be announced on 29 April 2027 and receive £30,000.
- The shortlisted works will be exhibited in London and then in Eschborn, Germany.
Four projects exploring war, the politics of looking, memory and invisible digital labour are competing for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2027.
Announced on 28 October 2026, the shortlist includes Hoda Afshar, Lotus L. Kang, Sasha Kurmaz and Salvatore Vitale. The 2027 edition marks 30 years since the first prize was awarded and reaches far beyond a conventional photographic frame: the nominated projects also use video, sound, sculpture, archival material and handmade collage.
The prize recognises an exhibition or publication that has made a significant contribution to photography in Europe over the preceding year. The winner will be announced on 29 April 2027 and receive £30,000; each of the other three shortlisted artists will receive £5,000.
Hoda Afshar: the politics of looking
Born in Tehran in 1983, Hoda Afshar is shortlisted for Performing the Invisible, presented at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris from 30 September 2025 to 25 January 2026. At its centre was The Fold, a sustained investigation of the legacy of colonial photography and the representation of veiled Islamic bodies.
Afshar revisits the archive of French psychiatrist and photographer Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault, who made thousands of photographs in Morocco. Using photographs, mirrors, drawings, video and sound, she shifts the question from the person depicted to the person looking: who holds the power to construct an image of someone else?
Lotus L. Kang: images transformed by light
Born in Toronto in 1985, Lotus L. Kang is shortlisted for The face of desire is loss at the Bulgari Pavilion of the 61st Venice Biennale (9 May–22 November 2026). The installation combines photography, moving image and sculpture to address the body, loss and memory.
Lengths of unfixed photographic film, which Kang calls “skins”, hang from steel joists. The material continues to react to light and humidity, changing colour over time. Sculptures, imagery of tidal mudflats and 49 bottles of spirits—referring to the 49 days between death and rebirth in Buddhist tradition—form an installation about constant transformation.
Sasha Kurmaz: a diary from wartime Ukraine
Born in Kyiv in 1986, Sasha Kurmaz is shortlisted for the photobook Red Horse, published by Éditions Images Vevey in November 2025. The project began after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Across 800 pages, Kurmaz combines documentary photographs, handmade collage, notes, drawings, newspaper cuttings and everyday found material. It is a personal chronicle of life under constant threat, asking how prolonged war and emergency reshape people, public space and collective memory.
Salvatore Vitale: the invisible workers of the digital economy
Born in Palermo in 1986, Salvatore Vitale is shortlisted for SABOTAGE at Photo Elysée in Lausanne (6 March–31 May 2026). The exhibition examines human labour behind the seemingly automated digital economy, from algorithmic management to pervasive surveillance.
Developed in collaboration with freelancers in South Africa, the project combines photography, film and sculptural installations. It examines how technology can reproduce older patterns of exploitation and inequality, while exploring resistance and agency. The accompanying photograph comes from the Death by GPS series, rather than being a single frame titled SABOTAGE.
Exhibitions and jury
Selected works by the four artists will be on view at The Photographers’ Gallery in London from 10 March to 6 June 2027, followed by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt from 19 June to 26 September 2027.
The jury comprises multidisciplinary artist Laia Abril, Centre Pompidou curator Damarice Amao, artist and publisher Verónica Fieiras, Anne-Marie Beckmann of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and Shoair Mavlian of The Photographers’ Gallery, who chairs the jury with a vote.
In 2026, Rene Matić won the same prize for AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, selected from a different group of four artists whose works also engaged with social concerns and photographic experimentation.
What we think
What makes this shortlist interesting is how differently each artist uses images. With The Fold, looking at an archival photograph is only the beginning; we also have to ask who made it and why. In Red Horse, the personal documentary record becomes a way of preserving memory during war.
Kang’s installation reminds those of us who have worked with film that the photographic material itself is not always stable. Vitale, meanwhile, takes us behind the screen to the people whose labour sustains supposedly “automatic” digital services.
These four projects deserve attention as genuinely different propositions for what photography can do today, rather than as a simple contest of technique or aesthetics.
Frequently asked questions
When will the winner be announced?
On 29 April 2027. The winning artist will receive £30,000.
Is this an open-entry competition for individual photographs?
No. This particular prize recognises artists for an exhibition or photographic publication, rather than choosing a single submitted image.
