For the first time in the award’s history we printed a catalogue presenting (not only) this years shortlist. Nicolas Polli from Ciao Press put in his structuring design magic while Ufuk Şahin from MAS added that little extra silver plate on press. The result is amazing!
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 – but alternatively as a download. Have a look!
generously supported by:
The 2023 Shortlist Jury
This year we gathered a highly interesting mix of jurors. Raging from a curator to a designer, from an art historian to a publisher and from a museum director to a printer the jury sifted passionatly trough all the books and after hard fights and discussion came up with an impressing lineup of dummies for this years shortlist.
* Anastasiia Leonova
is a publisher, art manager and curator, co-founder of IST Publishing house based in Ukraine. From 2014 to 2020 she ran a small independent art gallery of contemporary art in Kharkiv. With a background in sociology and art history she has a focus on photography and photobooks. Leonova is the curator of the BOOK CHAMPIONS WEEKEND festival and coordinator of the Eastern region of the UPHA (Ukrainian Photography Alternative).
* Anja Schürmann
is working as Permanent Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen (KWI). Her post-doc project deals with visual narration in the photobook. It examines visual narration in photobooks on both a narrative-theoretical and an aesthetic level of iconicity. She has written several essays on this topic and co-edited a thematic issue of the journal Fotogeschichte with Steffen Siegel. In 2016 she won the 1st prize of the international talent competition of C/O Berlin in the field of art criticism.
* Ângela Ferreira
aka Ângela Berlinde is an artist, photography curator and lecturer in various faculties in Portugal and Brasil. She was co-founder and artistic director of the Portuguese Photofestival Encontros da Imagem in Braga and very recently curated Solar FotoFestival in Fortaleza, Brasil. She is co-founder of the Portuguese Photobooks Observatory, an online ptafform dedicated to the study of Portuguese books.
* Nicolas Polli
is a photographer, graphic designer and the publisher of CIAO Press. After he founded Yet Magazine together with Salvatore Vitale he has started his own graphic design studio Atelier CIAO. Polli lives in Bienne, Switzerland where he is designing books for various photographers, publishers and festivals and has made himself a name as amateur pizzaiolo.
* Ufuk Şahin
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.
* Frederic Lezmi
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. Lezmi teaches photobook design at various universities and faculties in Germany (FH Dortmund, FH Hannover and DHBW Ravensburg).
Jury Statement:BULLETPROOF BOOKS
The Timeless Power of Photobooks and the Greatest Hits of the Dummy Award
We love with passion the Book, the Photography, and definitely the feverish combination of the two. The power and popularity of the photobooks its timeless. The phenomenon has lasted now for more than twenty years and it´s exciting to say the genre continues to flourish more than ever, as brave photographers challenge the format in innovative ways, offering us a level of ingenuity, experimentation, consciousness, and sophistication that had rarely been achieved before.
One of the most sparkle vitality of the photobook dummy is that arrives still in potency, directly from the brain & heart of the artist, without filters, fresh of desires and also with wonderful mistakes. This is the vitality point of the dummy which rests essentially on a combination of risks of talented artists, generating a territory in which photography expresses its true narrative potential. While some build on traditional formats, others push to deliver the most unique and intimate art experiences imaginable, where the books are vacillating between the art objects, sculpture installations or literature pocket books. Many of the books address plural themes, as gender borders, personal stories, examine the dramatic war conflicts or lift underrepresented voices. In contrast, other titles stand out as reprieve from these turbulent times.
The 2023 Photobook Dummy Award collection embraces the different approaches and latitudes which seeks to uncover a huge laboratory for search of meaning to face turbulent times, offering a playful, reflective and sharply visual experience.
Ângela Berlinde & the jury of the Dummy Award 2023
The World Tour 2023
Two boxes with the 50 shortlisted dummy travel the world! To 18 venues, festivals or initiatives in 15 countries on 3 continents. Worldwide dummy exposure guaranteed!
Tour dates
Format Festival, Derby, England → 16.03 – 9.04.2023
Officine Fotografiche, Rome, Italy → 1.04 – 20.04.2023
Grisart, Barcelona, Spain → 26.04 – 30.05.2023
Photoszene Köln / The PhotoBookMuseum, Cologne → 12.05 – 25.05.2023
Fotofestiwal, Łódź, Poland → 15.06 – 25.06.2023
Lumenvisum, Hong Kong → 26.06 – July 16.07.2023
Rencontres Arles, France (Reception) → 06.07.2023
PhotoIreland, Dublin, Ireland → 13.07 – 16.07.2023
CCP, Melbourne, Australia → 11.08 – 26.08.2023
JIP Fest, Jakarta, Indonesia → 9.09 – 25.09.2023
Istituto Italiano di Fotografia, Milano, Italy → 21.09 – 15.10.2023
Photobook Week Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark → 01.11 – 5.11.2023
Reminders Photography Stronghold, Kyoto, Japan →03.11. – 12.11.2023
Reminders Photography Stronghold, Tokyo, Japan →18.11.2023 – 27.11.2023
KA – Space for Visual Culture and Artistic Thinking, Ankara, Turkey → 11.2023
NOKS Art Space, Istanbul, Turkey → 12.2023
Offset Projects, New Delhi, India → 12.2023 – 03.2024
Photobook Festival, Leipzig, Germany → 09.03. – 10.03.2024
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.
