The Grand Prix Images Vevey 2019/2020 goes to Kristine Potter (United States)
The Images Vevey Book Award goes to Gloria Oyarzabal (Spain)

After three days of deliberation, the jury of the Grand Prix Images Vevey, chaired by Indian artist Dayanita Singh and composed of Emma Bowkett (Director of Photography, Financial Times FT Weekend Magazine, London), Lesley A. Martin (Creative Director, Aperture Foundation, New York), Christoph Wiesner (Artistic Director, Paris Photo, Paris) and Francesco Zanot (Independent curator, Milan) awarded the following prizes:

Grand Prix Images Vevey 2019/2020
Kristine Potter (United States)
Dark Waters

The jury commented upon its decision thus:

“The jury was deeply impressed by Dark Waters, Kristine Potter’s meditation on the violence embedded in the landscape and popular culture of the American South. In particular, the jury members considered the work’s gothic, literary approach to the tradition of American murder ballads to be notable for its ability to turn a classic photographic subject—the American landscape—on its head. The work excavates a hidden history of death and violence against women. Potter takes note of the descriptions of beatings and killings plainly stated in the lyrics of traditional Appalachian and Blues songs. She also locates this past by photographing at sites with names like Murder Creek, Bloody River, and Rape Pond. Potter proposes to combine video and music with traditional, large-format black-and-white photographs, including landscapes and a series of haunting, staged portraits inspired by the female subjects of the lyrics. The work powerfully confronts the violence inherent in these sites and lyrics, as well as the male-dominated history of American landscape photography.

The jury unanimously looks forward to the expansion of Kristine Potter’s already robust practice and her reexamination of these dark mythologies. While her proposal is grounded in a specific, historical tradition and locales, the jury felt that the implications are universally applicable to the gendered, violent messages that often go unexamined in contemporary popular culture.”

Kristine Potter :

Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Kristine Potter (1977) studied photography at the University of Georgia and Yale University. Winner of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018, she has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums in the United States and Europe. Her work has been included in private and public collections such as the Georgia Museum of Art and has been published in journals such as Contact Sheet, Paper Journal and The British Journal of Photography. Her first monograph, “Manifest” was published by TBWBooks in 2018.

Grand Prix Images Vevey is a creation-support grant for photography projects. The award, worth some CHF 40,000 (approx. EUR 35,000), enables artists to develop an original project. The winner now has one year to complete the project which will premiere at the next Festival Images Vevey from 5 to 27 September 2020.

Images Vevey Book Award 2019/2020
Gloria Oyarzabal (Spain)
Woman No Go’ Gree

The jury commented upon its decision thus:

“ Gloria Oyarzabal’s book proposal promises an engaging, visually exciting mix of her own images, a selection of archival material, and an extensive, research-based text. The project wrestles with the challenges of applying “universal” Western feminist ideas to cultures with entirely different traditions. The jury unanimously felt this exploration of feminism and of cultural and racial biases to be urgent to our time. The project’s title, Woman No Go’Gree is drawn from a Fela Kuti song; the concept is inspired by Nigerian sociologist Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi’s essay titled “The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses.” Spanish artist Oyarzabal finds a number of ideas within this 1997 essay that are key to this photo-text project: namely, that the misapplication of Victorian and monotheistic religious ideas of gender have obscured the gaze to the roots of true African feminism. The jury were excited by a book project dedicated to the postcolonial rethinking of gender and race—and most especially by one that suggests that the author is more open to posing questions than imposing answers.”

Gloria Oyarzabal :

Gloria Oyarzabal (1971) trained and graduated with a Fine Arts degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where she currently lives and works. After having lived several years in Mali, the Spanish artist has since developed a research on the construction of the idea of Africa, the processes of colonization and decolonization, with a particular interest in African feminisms. Her work has been exhibited in numerous photography festivals such as FORMAT in Derby (UK), Fotofestiwal in Lodz (PL), LagosPhoto (NG) and Encontros da Imagem in Braga (PT).

Made possible by the Amis d’Images association, the Images Vevey Book Award supports the creation of a book project that showcases an optimal and original balance between publication format and photographic content with a CHF 10,000 (app. € 9,000) grant.

The jury also awarded the following prizes:

Special Jury Prize
Lei Lei (China)
Weekend

Born in 1985 in Nanchang (China) and based in Los Angeles and Beijing.

“The jury unanimously awarded a Special Jury Prize to Chinese artist Lei Lei for his ongoing video and collage project, Weekend. Based in Los Angeles, Lei Lei maintains a growing collection of images from second hand markets and vintage magazines such as China Pictorial. He isolates, selects, and assembles elements from these materials, questioning the difference between artwork and archive, memories and dreams. In the resulting collages, he creates a hybridized, personal history, in addition to animating them and creating a soundtrack for each. As philosopher and art critic Boris Groys pointed out “Life can be recorded, but it can’t be shown.” The jury were charmed and seduced by Lei Lei’s attempt to reinvent a visual language mixing analog and digital approaches to showing life.”

Broncolor Prize – Light
Benoît Jeannet (Switzerland/Spain)
Escape from Paradise

Born in 1991 in Neuchâtel (Switzerland), where he currently lives and works.

“The jury is pleased to unanimously select Benoît Jeannet as the Broncolor Prize Light. His project, Escape from Paradise, is a study of Hawaiian myth and iconography. In the photographer’s studio, the island becomes an observation laboratory—a microcosm of twentieth-century history. The plantations of the Dole Food Company; the history of the Hawaiian shirt; the Chicago convention of 1944; the invention of the atomic bomb, and the Internet boom are elements that have shaped our popular perception of the Island. Hawaïan images, inscribed in popular culture, function as the objects of watered-down propaganda. The jury appreciated Jeannet’s studio-based approach to iconographic elements, allowing them to be represented as sculptural photographic objects. The series constructs an arrangement of contemporary artifacts with the aim of creating an installation –a visual archaeology for the future.”

Heidi.news Prize – Reportage
Jack Latham (United Kingdom)
Beggar’s Honey

Born in 1989 in Cardiff and currently based in Bristol.

“The jury unanimously wished to recognize Jack Latham as an exciting voice in contemporary documentary practice. This Heidi.news Prize – Reportage is an opportunity to launch a new project for this photographer, who uses methodical research as a foundation for his practice. He has already proven to be skilled at revealing the hidden structures and systems that shape our lives in his prior projects, Sugar Paper Theories and Parliament of Owls. This new proposal, Beggar’s Honey, will examine the emergence of “Click Factories” that have popped up throughout Eastern Europe and Asia in secret warehouses in which thousands of phones are programmed to influence public opinion by aggregating “likes” and “comments”. An issue considered to be a significant and very real part of the “fake news” crisis.”

The Jury:
The jury of the Grand Prix Images Vevey from left to right: Christoph Wiesner (Artistic Director, Paris Photo), Lesley A. Martin (Creative Director, Aperture Foundation, New York), internationally renowned artist Dayanita Singh (President of the Jury), Emma Bowkett (Director of photography, Financial Times FT Weekend Magazine, London) and Francesco Zanot (Independent Curator, Milan)
Including the Grand Prix Images Vevey, Images Vevey Book Award and various other prizes, Fondation Vevey ville d’images allocates creation support grants of more than CHF 80,000 every other year. The Grand Prix Images Vevey in figures: - 446 applications - from 51 countries - 65 projects selected for the jury - 1 Grand Prix Images Vevey et 3 mentions The Images Vevey Book Award in figures: - 197 applications - from 30 countries - 42 projects selected for the jury - 1 winning project