Coping with life during lockdown, exploring queerness & transness plus the post-Soviet landscape in Kyrgyzstan – the winners of the TAYLOR WESSING PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT PRIZE 2022 on GoSee and as an exhibition in London
Clémentine Schneidermann won first prize in the prestigious Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2022 for portraits from the series ‘Laundry Day’, which document the daily chores of her neighbor in South Wales coping with life in lockdown. The winner of the £15,000 first prize was announced on 25 October at the awards ceremony held at Cromwell Place in South Kensington.
Second prize went to Haneem Christian for the works ‘Mother and Daughter’ and ‘Rooted’, which explore queerness, transness and the impact on the family. Alexander Komenda received third prize for ‘Zahid’s Son’, a portrait which examines the topics of identity and the post-Soviet landscape in Kyrgyzstan.
The winning portraits are now on show as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2022 exhibition at Cromwell Place, in South Kensington, London from 27 October through 18 December, 2022. On display at the exhibition are 51 portraits from 36 different artists, selected by a panel of judges including Christina Lamb, Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times; Siân Davey, award-winning photographer; and Shoair Mavlian, Director of Photoworks.
Clémentine Schneidermann’s portraits from her series ‘Laundry Day’ depict the photographer’s neighbor, hanging laundry in the garden of her home in South Wales. The photographs “document micro events which deal with the passage of time through the small moments of our daily lives,” the french artist comments. The photographer remarks that “the beauty of photography is to see magic in the simplest moments.” The jury praised the unusual perspective of the portraits, which are close, but not close enough to see the subject’s face, which they felt was an intriguing take on the conventions of traditional portraiture.
Haneem Christian is an activist, who was born and raised in Cape Town. Their photography focuses on representation within the Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ community. Their entries, entitled ‘Mother and Daughter’ and ‘Rooted’, are photographic works from two separate series that explore queerness and transness in relation to family, race and identity. The judges felt that Haneem Christian’s portraits tenderly and poetically convey complex narratives. The works were particularly praised for giving voices to communities in various cultural contexts, and for the deep trust visible between the subjects and photographer.
Alexander Komenda is a Polish-Canadian documentary photographer, whose work focuses on revealing the nuances of everyday life. ‘Zahid’s Son’ is part of Komenda’s ongoing series ‘The Lost Enchiridion of the Fergana Valley’ and examines identity and the post-imperialist landscape of the Fergana Valley, which extends across Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. His portrait depicts the son of Zahid, an Uzbek friend working in the field of human rights. The judges were struck by the immediacy of the image.
The annual ‘In Focus’ section of the exhibition showcases new work by internationally-renowned photographers, exhibited alongside the photographs selected anonymously from the competition entries. Since its inaugural display in 2015, photographers have included Pieter Hugo, Cristina de Middel, Ethan James Green, Todd Hido, Rinko Kawauchi and Alessandra Sanguinetti. This year, Jamaican native filmmaker and photographer Jeano Edwards are showing a new body of work, shot this Summer in the Dominican Republic.
Dr. Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery : “Congratulations to the prize-winners and to all the selected photographers. This year’s entries to the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize demonstrate the outstanding level at which photographers around the world are approaching the art of portraiture. The final 51 selected submissions are a remarkable collection of images that reflect the competition’s international reach and demonstrate an extraordinary variety of themes and styles within the parameters of photographic portraiture. Since the launch of the prize in 1993, now in its fifteenth year of sponsorship by Taylor Wessing, over one million people have seen the exhibition, which continues to bring the very best in contemporary photography to our audiences.”
Shane Gleghorn, Managing Partner of Taylor Wessing : “All of the artists in this year’s exhibition thoroughly deserve the plaudits they have received for their work because, although the images encompass many different techniques and perspectives, they are all thought-provoking. The prize has enabled artists around the world to use their talent and creativity to raise awareness in respect of a number of key issues, and that makes for a powerful exhibition. My congratulations to all of the shortlisted artists and prize winners, who gave the judging panel such a challenging task this year.”
Winning portraits are on display at Cromwell Place, South Kensington, from 27 October through 18 December 2022, Cromwell Place. www.npg.org.uk/photoprize
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