Shortlist Jury Session at the PhotoBookMuseum in Cologne, 08.03.2025
Dummy Award 2025
395 books from 48 countries were submitted for the 2025 Dummy Award. The shortlist selection resulted in 50 photobooks.
Congratulations to all shortlisted authors and a big thank you to all artists that took part in this years Dummy Award. Your participation means a lot to us and keeps the award alive every year!
395 books from 48 countries were submitted for the 2025 Dummy Award. The shortlist selection resulted in 50 photobooks.
Congratulations to all shortlisted authors and a big thank you to all artists that took part in this years Dummy Award. Your participation means a lot to us and keeps the award alive every year!
For the third edition of our catalogue presenting the 50 shortlisted books we asked acclaimed photobook-designer Melanie Mues to take over. We love the result. It’s amazing! Thank you Melanie!
Distributed for free at all exhibiting events and venues, to design & photography faculties and of course at Rencontres d’Arles and Paris Photo.
Best seen in print (with neon magenta ink!)– but alternatively as a download. Have a look!
generously supported by:
Meet the 2025 Jury*
Shortlist Jury Session at the PhotoBookMuseum in Cologne, 08.03 2025
This year’s jury consisted of a diverse group of professionals from the photobook industry, including a curator, designer, editor, publisher, photographer, collector, and printer, all together brought a wealth of expertise to the table. The jury came together in Cologne on the 8th of March 2025.
* Amandine Marchant (CH)
was introduced to photography at the Vevey School of Photography. She quickly pursued hands-on professional training, refining her skills at a renowned publishing house before focusing on photography. Since 2018, she has been part of Images Vevey, first as Communications manager and now as head of Éditions Images Vevey, where she merges her passions for books and photography, overseeing editorial projects and the prestigious Images Vevey Book Award.
* Frederic Lezmi (DE)
is a photographer, designer and photobook curator. He is artistic director of The PhotoBookMuseum in Cologne, wich he co-founded together with Markus Schaden in 2014. Frederic teaches photobook design at various universities and faculties in Germany (FH Dortmund, FH Hannover and DHBW Ravensburg).
Photo © Oxana Guryanova
* Lucia Halder (DE)
is a curator and visual historian. She is head of the photographic collection at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne and a member of the artistic board of Internationale Photoszene Cologne. Her work focuses on decolonial practices in researching, collecting and exhibiting photography, contemporary approaches to archives and counter-image strategies.
Photo © Marina Rosa Weig
* Luis Weinstein (CL)
is a photographer, editor, lecturer and curator from Santiago de Chile. He has been member of the board of the International Festival of Photography at Valparaíso until 2015. He is the author of more than ten photobook and has founded the South American photo magazine Sueño de la Razón. Through Fundación SudFotografica, a nonprofit he currently chairs, he collaborates in the research of the Chilean photobook.
* Matthieu Nicol (FR)
is a picture editor and image collector. His artistic practice consists of recovering and republishing bodies of passed images with no market value or notion of authorship, that have lost the usefulness they once had. He recirculates and shares them in the form of exhibitions, books and online publications. He is the founder of the cultural consultancy Too many Pictures.
* Melanie Mues (UK)
is a book designer and the founder of award winning East London design studio Mues Design.
Photo © Tom Jamieson
* Ufuk Şahin (TR)
studied photography at Hofstra University, NY. Since 2007, he has been part of the core team at MAS printing house as the second-generation manager and partner. In 2010, he founded MASA, a publishing house specializing in facsimiles, photobooks and art-books; which has since published more than 40 books. He is a photography enthusiast and an avid photobook collector.
* Yvonne De Rosa (IT)
is a photographer, researcher and founder of the independent space Magazzini Fotografici in Naples where she serves is it’s artistic director. She is a multidisciplinary artist who combines words and images to create layered works. Her work reflects on the nature of the photographic medium and its use in narrating and marking time and memory.
The World Tour 2025
Two boxes with the 50 shortlisted dummy are traveling the world right now! Worldwide dummy exposure guaranteed!
Tour dates
PUK#20/ Goethe Institute , Sofia, Bulgaria → 03.04.–06.04.2025
Istituto Italiano di Fotografia, Milano, Italy → 05.05.–23.05.2025
Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne, Germany → 16.05. – 10.06.2025
f2 Festival, Dortmund, Germany → 12.05. – 15.05.2025
Fotofestiwal, Łódź, Poland → 12.06.-22.06.2025
Grisart, Barcelona, Spain → 27.06.-11.07.2025
Rencontres Arles – Pop-Up hosted by the Fotobus , Arles France → 01.07.-6.07.2024
Galerie Fotografic, Prague, Czech Republic → 29.07 – 13.09.2025
Wiesbadener Fototage, Wiesbaden, Germany → 13.08 – 28.08.2025
Penumbra Foundation, New York, United States → 10.09 – 14.09.2025
International Centre for the Image / PhotoIreland, Dublin, Irland → 27.09. –26.10.2025
Universidad Diego Portales , Santiago, Chile → 02.10 –17.10.2025
Goethe Institute, Bangkok, Thailand → November 2025
Centro da Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico → 24.10 – 02.11.2025
Lumenvisum, Hong Kong → December 2025
Muntaka Projects / Goethe Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh → January 2026 (tbc)
Pentas Buku @ Matawaktu Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia → February 2026
+ Dummy Road-Tour to Bandung & Yogjakarta
Subject to change – check latest tour dates on Instagram
If you are organising a festival or run an institution or art space and you are interested in hosting the Dummy Award Shortlist please get in touch with . We are especially looking forward to add locations in Africa and North/South America to our world tour.