“..rewarded for visualising difficult subjects that need to be seen by a large audience.”

The Foam Paul Huf Award 2020 goes to Laia Abril (1986, ES). From a selection of 95 portfolios from 27 countries, each chosen by 30 nominators worldwide, the jury of five industry specialists chose this year’s winner today.

Laia Abril wins the prize for her long term project The History of Misogyny from which she submitted Chapter one: On Abortion and Chapter two: Rape. The Foam Paul Huf Award is presented annually to a photography talent under the age of 35 to encourage photographers in their artistic development. Foam has organized the award annually since 2007 and the winner is chosen by an independent international jury. Abril was chosen by the majority of the jury as the fourteenth winner of the Foam Paul Huf Award.

The jury report states: “Laia Abril’s ambition to bring relevant societal topics like abortion and rape to the spotlight, especially within the current political and social climate, deserves recognition and strong support. Her perseverance in working on the long term research of her ongoing project The History of Misogyny is admirable. The result of her efforts to visualise these difficult subjects needs to be seen by an audience as large as possible. We are confident the award will enable her to continue this important body of work.”

Foam’s artistic director Marcel Feil: “One of Foam’s primary objectives is to discover and support photography talent and therefore this award, along with the Foam Magazine Talent Issue, are very important to us. We are proud to be able to add a fantastic artist like Laia Abril to the impressive list of winners of the Foam Paul Huf Award as the fourteenth winner. Abril’s work absolutely belongs on this list, and we are very much looking forward to organising her exhibition at Foam later this year.”

Laia Abril will receive a cash prize of € 20,000.- and a solo exhibition at Foam. Additionally her work will be published in the prestigious annual Talent Issue of Foam Magazine and the internationally traveling group exhibition Foam Talent.

Previous winners of the Foam Paul Huf Award:
2019 – Eric Gyamfi (1990, Ghana), 2018 – Daniel Shea (1985, United States), 2017 - Romain Mader (1988, Switzerland), 2016 - Daisuke Yokota (1983, Japan), 2015 - Momo Okabe (1981, Japan), 2014 - Daniel Gordon (1980, United States), 2013 - Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (1979, Switzerland), 2012 - Alex Prager (1979, United States), 2011 - Raphaël Dallaporta (1980, France), 2010 - Alexander Gronsky (1980, Estonia), 2009 - Leonie Hampton (1978, United Kingdom), 2008 - Pieter Hugo (1976, South Africa), 2007 - Taryn Simon (1975, United States) and Mikhael Subotzky (1981, South Africa).

Jury 2020
The jury for 2020 consisted of the following members: Elena Navarro (chair, Mexico), Hans Gremmen (The Netherlands), Yasufumi Nakamori (Japan), Joachim Naudts (Belgium) and Jenny Smets (The Netherlands).
*Due to the restricted travel possibilities in light of the Corona virus there has been a change in jury members.


Paul Huf
The Dutch photographer Paul Huf (1924-2002) was known for his innovative photographic technique and was an important ambassador for the establishment of Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam in 2001. To honour this special relationship, the Foam Paul Huf Award was created in 2007 in order to stimulate and support photographers on a global scale.

The Foam Paul Huf Award is made possible by the generous support from an anonymous partner.

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Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Foam Members, Gemeente Amsterdam, Olympus and the VandenEnde Foundation.