American Civil War-era bread and heroic migration: Deutsche Börse Prize nominees announced

The four artists shortlisted for the 2025 edition of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize have today been named as Cristina De Middel, Rahim Fortune, Tarrah Krajnak and Lindokuhle Sobekwa.

Established in 1996, the prize identifies and rewards artists whose work is deemed to have made a significant contribution to photography during the past 12 months. This years’ shortlist explores themes of migration, community and belonging, intergenerational traditions and rituals, family memories and photographic histories.

Anne-Marie Beckmann, the director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, said in a statement: “This year's shortlisted artists and their projects show the versatility of contemporary photography. Through a mix of photobooks and exhibitions, these international artists have an individual take on conveying deeply personal yet universal narratives. Their work powerfully demonstrates the importance of telling stories through images.”

Cristina De Middel is shortlisted for the exhibition Journey to the Center, which was on show at Les Rencontres de la photographie, Arles, France earlier this year. Using her roots in photojournalism and her more conceptual recent practice, the show presented the central American migration route across Mexico as a heroic and daring journey, rather than a desperate escape.

The US-based Rahim Fortune is recognised for the book Hardtack, published by Loose Joints in 2024. Hardtack is a long-life bread made with flour, water and salt that was commonly eaten in the southern states of America during the Civil War era. Borrowing from the language of vernacular and archival photography, Fortune employs this bread as a metaphor for the enduring nature of Black culture and traditions.

Meanwhile, the Peruvian-American artist Tarrah Krajnak is celebrated for the exhibition Shadowings. A Catalogue of Attitudes for Estranged Daughters, an exhibition spanning her 20-year career, which took place at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam until March this year. Krajnak's work, which often blurs the lines between staged self-portraiture and performance, is concerned with the craft and processes of photography: she still prints all of her own photographs using methods including pigment prints from colour film, silver gelatin prints and cyanotypes.

Finally, the cohort’s youngest member, the 29-year-old South African photographer and Magnum nominee Lindokuhle Sobekwa, is shortlisted for the book I carry Her photo with Me, published by Mack Books in 2024. The volume combines photographs, handwritten notes and family snapshots, exploring Sobekwa’s complex relationship with his sister, in the context of the long-reaching ramifications of apartheid and colonialism.

The four artists were selected by a jury made up of Beckman; Gwen Lee, the co-founder of Singapore International Photography Festival and director at DECK Photography Art Centre; Dana Lixenberg, a photographer and Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize shortlisted artist in 2017; Aron Mörel, the publisher of Mörel Books, and Shoair Mavlian, the director of The Photographers’ Gallery in London, which will host an exhibition of shortlisted works from March 2025.

Mavlian said in a statement: “The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2025 shortlist highlights the strength of photography now, with most of the work made in the last decade. The shortlisted work has been exhibited and published in Europe in the past year, and reflects the quality, strength and diversity of the wider photography scene in Europe. We look forward to sharing their work with our visitors in 2025.”