In Footage: 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize shortlist introduced

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize has nominated Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, Amak Mahmoodian and Rene Matić for the prize’s 2026 version.

The prize, initially established in 1996, recognises artists who’ve made the ‘most significant contribution to photography’ in a given 12 months. Previous winners embrace Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Lebohang Kganye, Samuel Fosso, Deana Lawson and Cao Fei, amongst others.

This 12 months’s jury incudes Elisa Medde (Director at Foto Colectania Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; former  Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine) Newsha Tavakolian (photographer and Magnum Photos member), Mark Sealy (Executive Director of Autograph ABP), Anne-Marie Beckmann (Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation) and Shoair Mavlian (The Photographers’ Gallery) as voting chair.

Beckmann known as this 12 months’s shortlist ‘a powerful testament to photography’s enduring capability to discover our shared social and societal circumstances. It celebrates images’s versatility and capability to not solely doc the world however to problem our perceptions of it, giving significance to points and communities which are typically neglected.’

An exhibition of the 4 chosen artists will go on present at The Photographers’ Gallery in London from 6 March by way of 7 June 2026.

The winner of the £30,000 prize will likely be introduced on Thursday 14 May 2026. The remaining shortlisted artists will every obtain £5,000.

Explore the shortlist:

Jane Evelyn Atwood

Jane Evelyn Atwood is shortlisted for her publication Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a revised, bilingual reprint of two works initially printed in 2000 and up to date by Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille in 2024. The ebook stems from a ten-year investigation for which she frolicked with incarcerated girls in forty prisons throughout 9 nations within the Nineties.

Weronika Gęsicka

Weronika Gęsicka is picked for the publication Encyclopaedia, printed by BLOW UP PRESS and Jednostka Gallery in November 2024. In the ebook, Gęsicka attracts on faux entries deliberately inserted into encyclopaedias, dictionaries and lexicons to interrogate the methods by which cultural and institutional belief erodes.

Amak Mahmoodian

Amak Mahmoodian is recognised for the exhibition One Hundred and Twenty Minutes, on view on the UK’s Bristol Photo Festival (which ran from 16 October – 17 November 2024). Spanning images, poetry, textual content, drawing and video, the exhibition explores the emotional and psychological results of exile.

Rene Matić

Rene Matić is shortlisted for the exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH at CCA Berlin in Germany (8 November 2024 – 15 February 2025). Featuring produced images, installations and sound items, AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH takes a diaristic method to id and belonging, subculture, class and neighborhood.