5TH ANNUAL WESTPHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE 2011

5TH ANNUAL WESTPHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE FAMILY & THE FAMILIAR

WELCOME TO ‘FAMILY & THE FAMILIAR’ This year’s photography prize focuses on our ‘nearest and dearest’ and presents a photographic discourse of everyday life.

With more than 250 photographers submitting close to 1.000 images the judges had the difficult task to nominate winners and runners-up in two categories: single image and project work. WESTPHOTO invited current and alumni students from the University of Westminster and the prestigious F+F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign in Zürich to submit images on the theme of Family & the familiar. The shortlisted photographers represent a broad range of photographic experience: BA and MA students, PhD and alumni students from both institutions. The resulting exhibitions in London and Zürich are an excellent showcase of current European photography.

The nominated work is as diverse as everyday life, exploring a variety of ideas and styles with one common aspect - a love of the photographic medium, a means of visual expression and communication. The work investigates notions of childhood and parenthood, memories, relationships, adolescence, emotions, identity, family history and immigration as the viewer is invited to reflect the passing of time and our awareness of being.

This year’s competition and exhibition was made possible thanks to the extraordinary enthusiasm of the whole WESTPHOTO team. My special thanks go to Debbie Naylor and Bindi Vora for their endless dedication and hard work to very tight deadlines and I would also like to thank Alejandro Rodriguez, Anad Damodaran and Alex Hannon for their invaluable input over the last year.

Many thanks to Andrea Gohl, Head of Photography at the F+F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign, for working with us this year and setting up the exhibition in Zürich. Thank you to Andy Golding, Head of Photography and Film at the University of Westminster, for his continued support and commitment to WESTPHOTO. A big thank you to all students and alumni - winning or not winning - for submitting their work to this year’s photography prize.

We are grateful to our main sponsors Heidelberg for printing this wonderful catalogue and x-rite for providing such fantastic prizes. Finally, a warm thank you to this year’s judges Cheryl Newman, Simona dell’Agli and Tom Hunter for their valuable time and expertise in nominating the work on display.

Andre Pinkowski DIRECTOR OF WESTPHOTO SENIOR LECTURER IN PHOTOGRAPHY UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

November 2011

5TH ANNUAL WESTPHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE FAMILY & THE FAMILIAR WESTPHOTO in collaboration with the prestigious F+F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign in Zurich, Switzerland invites you to submit images on the theme of ‘Family & The Familiar’.

The concept of family is constantly changing, with every person forming their own definition. Being familiar gives us confidence and security and is a guarantor for a multi-cultural society. As we learn to negotiate changes and new experiences in our lives the unfamiliar becomes familiar. Through photography we can visualise these changes.

Photograph © Tomas Hein

For detailed information please visit: westminster.ac.uk/westphoto

WESTPHOTO PICTURE AGENCY & LIBRARY

Heidelberg is the leading supplier of state of the art printing solutions to the graphics art market. Through our significant annual R&D spend we are continuing to develop and improve our printing products covering prepress, press, postpress and MIS to improve productivity and profitability for our customers.

As a global company we have identified the provision and development of education and training as one of our key core values. We have over 630 trainees and apprentices worldwide who are trained in all aspects of the print trade. In addition, we provide extensive training to our customers in London and through the Heidelberg Print Media Academy, a unique centre for knowledge, further education and communication.

Through our investments in education, we are delighted to support the University of Westminster’s annual photography prize by publishing a selection of the photographic work produced on the undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Supporting creative talent through projects like this is an investment into the future of promising young artists.

Print, like photography, is a time capsule, sealing a moment in time for the future. We hope that you enjoy the results of The 5th Annual WESTPHOTO Photography Prize as much as we have by producing the 2011 subject Family & The Familiar for interested to current and future generations.

Gerard Heanue MANAGING DIRECTOR, HEIDELBERG UK

November 2011

THE JUDGES

CHERYL NEWMAN PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR TELEGRAPH MAGAZINE

Cheryl Newman is the photography director of the award winning Telegraph magazine. Since joining the Telegraph twelve years ago she has raised the profile of the magazine within the industry commissioning intelligent, provocative and inventive photography. Her commitment to quality contemporary photography has provided a much-needed platform for photographers worldwide. A fine art graduate Cheryl is keen to encourage young talent and works closely with photographers on book and exhibition projects.

Cheryl has been a judge on a number of photography competitions including the Ian Parry award, the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, the Getty Grant 2009. Under her direction the magazine has twice won Newspaper Magazine of the Year at the British Magazine Editors awards. Cheryl is a visiting lecturer at The Bilder Nordic Photography School in Oslo and a member of the awards committee for the Royal Photographic Society.

www.telegraph.co.uk

TOM HUNTER ARTIST

SIMONA DELL’AGLI ARTQUEST

Tom Hunter graduated from the London College of

Simona graduated with an MA in Photographic Studies

Printing with a BA First Class Honours [1994], with his

at the University of Westminster in 2001 and is currently

Degree show ‘The Ghetto’ which is a 3D model of Tom’s

acting Programme Co-ordinator at Artquest where she runs

squatted neighbourhood, this is now permanent display in

professional development talks for students and recent

the Museum of London’s modern galleries. Tom took

graduates. Artquest is the first port of call for visual artists at

his MA at the Royal College of Art, London [1997] creating

all stages of their career. Artquest provides a vast amount of

a series of photographs evoking Vermeer’s paintings title

useful information from how to organize your own exhibition

‘Persons Unknown’. In 1998, Hunter won the John Kobal

in an empty shop, to how to work with a commercial gallery

Photographic Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery

to listings of venues, materials, studios and research libraries.

for his image ‘Women Reading a Possession Order’ from

As a photographic artist Simona self-published a ‘Road Map’

the series ‘Persons Unknown’. In 2006 Hunter was the first

titled Il Miracolo Italiano as part of her MA show and her

artist to have a photography show at the National Gallery,

work is widely exhibited throughout the UK. She exhibited

London for his series ‘Living in Hell and Other Stories’, which

at the first Brighton Biennial in 2003 and was nominated

talked about Hackney and its relationship to its local paper.

several times for the Artist Access for Art Scheme.

His most recent work shown at and commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery uses film to talk about the history of social housing and its impact on the ordinary people of

www.artquest.org.uk

London. Hunter currently lives and works in London.

www.simonadellagli.co.uk

His work is often particular, but not exclusive, to his community and neighbourhood’s of East London. He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally, in solo and group shows.

www.tomhunter.org

1ST PRIZE - SINGLE IMAGE Sharon Boothroyd University of Westminster

Untitled

1ST PRIZE - PROJECT Anna Kurpaska University of Westminster

The Visit The journey to my village in southern Poland allowed me to revisit my origin, and comparing the place and people living there to my process of rediscovery.

It encompasses a familiarity as well as the constant changes occurring around. The photographs are guided by sentiments examining the close connections exploring relationships and the interaction between people, nature, domesticity, surroundings and belongings in the place of one’s origin. The images pay homage to the people and landscape within my homeland.

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Johanna Encrantz F+F Schule f端r Kunst und Mediendesign

Click, double-click

4RTH PRIZE - SINGLE IMAGE Kun Song University of Westminster

Untitled

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Tomas Hein University of Westminster

Artifact The focus of Archaeology Now is on the remnants of the chinese family who inhabited 43 Gerrard Road in Islington, London. After their eviction and gaining access to the apartment, photography became my tool to intrinsically explore what had once been. The process of photographing during my nightly visits to the flat was like taking and keeping, so that back in my studio I could examine and draw conclusions about the family and their culture, which I’ve always been far from understanding.

The photographs would then stand in for the objects and the family pictures that I’d found on the walls and left untouched. I soon realized that the remnants of Gerard Road became stripped of both context and function through their representation and the family memory was not continued and perpetuated through my work but instead, it served to question notions on the status quo of family, place and memory. The objects represented are cultural possessions of the family and stress my clichéd perception of Chinese culture and its truisms. In this line, the deterioration that the family photographs suffer in the process of re-presenting them leaves only the basic physiognomies of the subjects recognizable, preserving their ethnical specificity and focusing on their multicultural characteristics and the generational differences.

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Vladimir Kastyl University of Westminster

New life The concept of family is constantly changing throughout the centuries. It always has and it always will. But one thing remains the same. The way, new members of the family come into this world is one aspect that is common for the families all around the world. This personal photographic project explores this very moment. Our child is born to unmarried, young couple. Few decades ago this was unimaginable and such a child would be exposed to risk prejudice from society.

2ND PRIZE - SINGLE IMAGE Janine Rickenmann F+F Schule f端r Kunst und Mediendesign

Girl in the forest

2ND PRIZE - PROJECT Giulia Zucchetti University of Westminster

Barefoot running childhood memories There are places that for a lifetime always stay the same. Etched into your memory they never change, all the details remain the same when recalling these memories in your mind. When I was a child I had a special place where I used to go when I felt melancholic.

There I was playing hide and seek again, engaging with the space around me. That night though, I had my camera with me, and instinct took over, I started taking photographs capturing the familiarity. The photographs were taken from the perspective of me now, compared to my wild-eyed childhood days. I also took a pee, behind the same bush where I used to do it, it felt good, liberating almost. The photographs are a representation of my childhood ‘locus amoenus’. Forever. Familiar.

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Nina Mangalanayagam University of Westminster

Untitled (From The Folds of the Fabric Fall Differently Each Time) My paternal family originally from Sri-Lanka, has ended up scattered around the world. this physical gap between family members has created mental boundaries between us. In The folds of the fabric fall differently each time I have recorded the process of how the family relationships gradually becomes unfamiliar.

I am half Tamil but grew up in Sweden and have hardly had contact with my relatives in Sri-Lanka because of the large physical and cultural distance between us.

I am analyzing my own place within this family structure, while emphasizing the importance that arises within the family in a dispersed globalised society.

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Matthias R端egg F+F Schule f端r Kunst und Mediendesign

Sisters Return This series is assembled through the collection of photographs over the last few years in second hand stores. The photographs express a hidden feeling of expression, even though I have no association with the images themselves they remind of my parents photo album and my childhood memories.

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Vera Rodriguez University of Westminster

Twins

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Laurence Harding University of Westminster

Girl in Garden

3RD PRIZE - PROJECT Peter Watkins University of Westminster

Piano, They all Would, The Last Kills ‘Remember man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return’. Is it possible to find any semblance of closure through photography? To be able to reconcile the past, to order the fragments of the memory, and to confront those memories that cling to our subconscious? They All Wound, The Last Kills is an explorative project investigating my personal family history where memory is the trigger for thought. The work is meant to act as a metaphysical exploration of the self, and the self-seeming inability to let go, to let the past be the past and look forward.

5TH PRIZE - SINGLE IMAGE Christina Renner F+F Schule f端r Kunst und Mediendesign

Sitting on top

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Mayumi Hirata University of Westminster

“Dad and us” My dad is a collector. He collects everything. Perhaps because he grew up during and after the WWII in Hiroshima with the key principle of “do not waste anything, you can re-use or recycle”. My dad and his room are at the centre of a traditional Japanese house made out of wood, paper and mud, where modernity and tradition mix in a genuinely chaotic manner. Visiting every year from London and seeing my sister, her family and my mixed race children lying about on the Tatami mats, surrounded by a wide variety of stuff, is a familiar, yet increasingly strange, bringing home the roots of my personality.

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Timur Geyran F+F Schule f端r Kunst und Mediendesign

The Black Sheep For this project I focused on typical family life around me.

Looking at the whole family, each individual member does not stand out that much, however each individual member has his/her own role and is valuable in its own right.

Every member of the family forms their own history, but has to constantly live-up to the expectations of the whole family.

Is there not a black sheep in every family?

WESTPHOTO - DIRECT ENTRY Bindi Vora University of Westminster

Transference of Memory

4TH PRIZE - PROJECT Konstantin Mitrokhov University of Westminster

6 Years This is a personal devotion to my family and hometown in Moscow, which I left six years ago. Through this series I have examined the way in which our memories fade through time as well as delving into the role of the ‘family’ and the effects it has upon us whilst growing up.

Inconsistency of childhood memories and the differences between a child and an adult is my inspiration for this project. I have attempted to identity subjects which are reminiscent of childhood and their relation to the present reality; comparing the memory to the actually of event.

Looking at the town, in which I grew up in, and watching it develop, as well as my parents growing older, and my not so young brother entering a new era of life.

3RD PRIZE - SINGLE IMAGE Bob Marsden University of Westminster

Family Tree

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Elena Koenz F+F Schule f端r Kunst und Mediendesign

Only the beautiful will survive

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Anne Clements University of Westminster

Untitled

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Camilla Watkins University of Westminster

Tea Time

RUNNER UP - SINGLE IMAGE Jovita Valaityte University of Westminster

Richard Strange with Kelly Dearsley

WESTPHOTO - DIRECT ENTRY Debbie Naylor University of Westminster

Grace

RUNNER UP - PROJECT Gosia Sobieszek University of Westminster

“No, not now!�

These images are embedded into my memory - only bits, fragments, tatters. They tell a story about my father but at the same time say a great deal about me. My relationship with my father was never easy, and I have never attempted to bridge the distance that lay between us, however I always wanted to count his support and approval but have never known how to communicate to one another.

The time lost can never be replaced, and now every minute is precious.

5TH PRIZE - PROJECT Alexandra Serrano University of Westminster

Between Finger and Thumb This autobiographical and self-reflective piece of work addresses the issues of memory within the context of the family and its domestic environment. The camera has been used a tool for the production and re-enactment of memories within the childhood home. In order to achieve this, scenarios that put forward the playful conceptualism of still life, and the creation of scenes rely entirely on the symbolic value of objects serving as reminders of people, lost feelings and past events. While the project explores the complex mechanism of reconstructed memories, it also reflects upon the psychology of a space that is dear to all of us. A place that is also the theatre of more sinister matters as it shelters in its darkest recesses and forgotten margins the remnants of past conflicts and family dramas.

THE UNIVERSITIES

UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER LONDON, ENGLAND Photography education at the University of Westminster has a unique depth of tradition. The world’s first courses in photographic chemistry were delivered in the main building of what is now the Regent Street Campus. The first degree in photography was delivered at the then Polytechnic, pioneering the critical study of photography in addition to practical training. Another first was the BSc Photographic Science which remains the premier course teaching the technology of imaging science.

Photography teaching is delivered on one of the finest and most fully equipped facilities in the country. www.westminster.ac.uk

F+F SCHULE FĂœR KUNST UND MEDIENDESIGN ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

WESTPHOTO PICTURE AGENCY & LIBRARY LONDON, ENGLAND

The F+F School was founded in Zurich in 1971 and has

WESTPHOTO started as an initiative to enable students

since played a pioneering role in Swiss art education. The

to respond to professional structures, commissions and

school experimented early on with performance, video and

expectations within the photographic field. Now an

the new media and became increasingly well-established as

established entity of the photography department at the

a professional educational venue for art and design.

University of Westminster it provides professional services from students for students, photographic assignments for

Today, the F+F School of Art and Media Design is supported

internal and external clients, hosts a photographic library

by a foundation co-founded by the City of Zurich. About 220

and runs the annual photography prize.

full-time students currently attend the school, which receives a subsidy from the city of Zurich. F+F is a member of the Swiss Association of Schools of Art and Design.

As an autonomous school, F+F advocates an open-minded approach to art and design and cultivates a spirit of partnership between faculty and students. Thanks to the small size of the school, students can be sure of receiving intensive and individual supervision. www.ffzh.ch

www.westphoto.co.uk

X-Rite Right On Color X-Rite is the global leader in color science and technology. The Company, which now includes color industry leader Pantone, Inc., develops, manufactures, markets and supports innovative color solutions through measurement systems, software, color standards and services. X-Rite’s expertise in inspiring, selecting, measuring, formulating, communicating and matching color helps users get color right the first time and every time, which translates to better quality and reduced costs. X-Rite serves a range of industries, including printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video, automotive, paints, plastics, textiles, dental and medical.

Whatever your level of expertise—advanced amateur, portrait/social or professional photography—X-Rite offers color management systems designed for anyone who views or corrects color on screen and will benefit from having a corrected display.

All serious photographers require a high degree of color accuracy. Color Management for photography is an essential component of digital imaging. From capturing images, to editing on-screen, to image output, X-Rite color control solutions make it easy for every photographer - at any level - to achieve consistent, accurate color throughout their entire photographic workflow. No matter what your color management needs are, X-Rite photo solutions will save you time, effort and money and you’ll get the color results you desire from capture-to-screen-to-print.

November 2011

With a history dating back to 1847, Tetenal is one of the world’s oldest photographic companies and this history is reflected in our breadth of knowledge and expertise across the whole photographic spectrum.

Based in Nordestedt, just outside Hamburg in Germany, Tetenal has expanded over the last couple of decades and now has subsidiaries in France and Poland as well as here in UK, more specifically, Leicester. Today, Tetenal UK distribute photographic products for some of the leading names in the industry including Ilford, Kodak and Epson.

Founded in 1879, ILFORD is a leading player in the development and manufacture of photo quality media for both inkjet printing and photographic processes. By building on its photographic knowledge and expertise, ILFORD develops products to suit their customers’ needs. Today, ILFORD is one of the few companies in the world to have integrated research and development initiatives for dyes, inks and coated media used in photo quality inkjet printing.

We are jointly supporting Westphoto in this venture as we see it as vitally important to encourage the new breed of photographers who are coming into the industry and to recognise the potential of all the participants.

Taking part in competitions such as this is an invaluable opportunity to have work viewed by a wider audience and the experience gained will stand all entrants in good stead as they enter into the competitive environment of the professional photographer.

November 2011

5TH ANNUAL WESTPHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE WESTPHOTO are proud to have an association with the following sponsor and contributors:

Design: Debbie Naylor Competition Co-ordinator: Bindi Vora A big thank you for their kind help and support goes to Mohammed Ali, Ulrike Leyens, Dominic Naylor, Niall Carter, Derek Power, Afrodite Kapassa, Jeremy Pilkington, Renee de Neve, Mark Bassett and Justin Hobson, Neil Hathaway, Ian Trengouse and Paul Chamberlain.

WESTPHOTO

PICTURE AGENCY & LIBRARY

University of Westminster WESTPHOTO Picture Library & Agency Harrow Campus Watford Road Harrow HA1 3TP Tel: +44 (0)20 7911 5000 ext 4787 www.westphoto.co.uk