ANZ Photobook Award

 

Winners + Finalists 2019


CONGRATULATIONS to our winners:
And to our other finalists from 104 entries:
 
 

W I N N E R 

Apókryphos



 
by Cherine Fahd
Published by M.33


Country: Australia
Designed by Elliott Bryce Foulkes
Text by Daniel Mudie Cunningham
Printed by 1010
ISBN: 978-0-6484899-0-0
RRP: AUD $40
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Size: 190 x 240
Pages: 128
Edition of: 500
Printing: 4 x 4c 
Paper: Woodfree 170 gsm
Format: Limp bound swiss binding with gatefolds

Artist Description
Cherine Fahd is an artist, academic and writer working in the field of photography. Fahd has exhibited extensively in major public institutions in Australia and internationally. Her work is represented in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego and the Haifa Museum of Art, Israel. In 2018 she was awarded the Asialink Creative Exchange residency to Varanasi, India and in 2019 she was selected for The National: New Australian Art and awarded a residency at The Clothing Store, both at Carriageworks. Fahd’s first book with M.33, A Portrait is a Puzzle was published in 2017.
 
Book

Apókryphos features 24 found photographs taken in 1975 of Fahd's grandfather’s funeral, captured by an unknown family friend. It is an intimate study of the ways in which grief and mourning are visualised, experienced and witnessed. Through annotations, footnotes and text, written by Fahd as artist and Mudie Cunningham as curator, the reader experiences the emotion of a moving family funeral and burial. The wraparound cover acts as a tool of concealment, reflecting the artist’s intention to reveal and also withhold information, while the close-up and full frame images zoom the reader in and out, forcing them to play hide and seek with the story behind them.
 
Judges’ Comment

A sophisticated book with an exceptional design and an original structure, clear fruit of a close collaboration with the designer. Through playful deconstruction of compelling visual elements, a complex narrative on grief and mourning arises around the exploration of 24 photos, making us look beyond the superficial to discover poignant reflections through the trivialities of everyday life. 
   
 

C O M M E N D E D

Jump Into Bed With Me
 
by Paul Knight
Published by Perimeter Editions

Country: Australia
Design by: Roland Brauchli
Editor: Emma Capps
Colour Reproductions: Flavio Milani
Printed by Pöge Druck
​​ISBN: 978-0-9876371-5-4
RRP: AUD $35.00
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Size: 183 x 137
Pages: 88
Edition of: 400
Printing: Traditional offset
Format: Staple-bound folded booklet  
Artist Description
Paul Knight (b. 1976) holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at the Victorian College of the Arts and a Master of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art. He has been the recipient of the prestigious Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, studio recipient at Gertrude Contemporary, winner of the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize at the Monash Gallery of Art, London studio residency by the Australia Council for the Arts and a New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Knight's work has been included in NEW08 (ACCA), Primavera (MCA, Sydney) and Bloomberg New Contemporaries (UK). Knight has exhibited in Australia, UK, Europe, USA and Japan. 

Book
Positioning his 35mm camera on any available surface and setting a timer, Knight and his partner make themselves available for the camera to see what it sees: laundry, breakfast, sex, day trips to the seaside, nights at the pub, moments of domestic calm. Knight eschews his diaristic gaze in the same way he loosens photography from notions of time or chronology. Paired with an edited transcript of the couple's text message history, jump into bed with me is both a missive to a lover and an ode to photography's intrinsic processes. The camera, when left to its own devices, can capture wonderful and beautiful things.

  
Judges’ Comment
This unassuming publication playfully invites us to peek into a relationship through a personal, raw, and compelling photographic treatment. The honest imagery inspires an empathetic response, even when we are offered the most intimate details. The foldout design slows down the narrative, coaxing us to spend more time reading. A strong first-person everyday account of a relationship. 
 

C O M M E N D E D

Tem Bigato Nessa Goiaba
 
by Cecilia Sordi Campos
Self Published

Country: Australia
Printed by E-Plot Print Solutions
RRP: Price on request

Size: 210 x 297
Pages: 96
Edition of 3
Printing: Digital offset 
Paper: Curious Metallic
Format: Perfect bound softcover
 

Artist Description
Growing up in the countryside in Brazil, I got hold of a camera for the first time at age nine, after winning a contest at primary school. I took photos of everything and everyone. Unfortunately many of the rolls of film I went through were never developed. I still think of those never seen photographs. I am now a Melbourne-based photographic artist and have been living in Australia for the past 13 years. Most of my work deals with my migration and the inherent void I feel for not quite knowing where I belong. I am also interested in the notions of intimacy and the spectrum of personal relationships. I am obsessed with moths.

Book
The creation of Tem Bigato Nessa Goiaba was a transformative process for Campos as she sought to understand and move on from an emotionally abusive relationship. The photo book explores the multiple layers of her identity by drawing on magical realism and the anthropophagic manifesto. There is no censorship, as she shares the disorders, choices and metamorphoses that have allowed her to move through a significant emotional transition.
 
Judges’ Comment

This is a sumptuous, irreverent and aesthetically ingenious book that raises the right amount of questions while it entertains. It reads as a personal journey, but we don't quite know where it will end. The refined editing and a brave use of tightly framed close-ups constantly present us with rich imagery page after page, to great effect.
   

S T U D E N T   W I N N E R

The Bridge
 
by Matteo Dal Vera & Michael Weatherill
Self Published
From University of Technology, Sydney

Country: Australia
Printed by Momento Pro
RRP: Price on request
 

Size: 210 x 250
Pages: 112
Edition of 3
Printing: Digital Offset
Format: Set of three section sewn, embossed cloth bound hardcovers
 

Artist Description
Matteo Dal Vera (b. 1998) is a photographer based in Sydney, Australia. Michael Weatherill (b. 1994) is a photographer currently based in Vancouver, Canada. Interested in the process of working long-form, Matteo Dal Vera and Michael Weatheril's collaborative practice explores a narrative that lies in a space between the documentary aesthetic and constructed conceptual imagery. Their latest project, 'The Bridge', compiles photographs made around a single body of water, which they returned to over the duration of a year.

Book
The Bridge was a year long project for two graduate photographers exploring how collaborative practice influences progress, ideas and sensibilities in a photographic work. The three volume series is their lyrical response to a body of water, and the ebb and flow of life that surrounds it. The visual narrative offers open-ended observations of the people that come and go to the bridge, and investigates recurring sentiments of retreat and detachment. The book format allowed them to experiment with new ways to present their photographs and sequences in a single work.
 
Judges’ Comment

A serious and beautifully executed collaboration from two students who return to one stretch of river over the course of a year. Balanced and deft, tender and powerful, the three volumes drive home the collision between man and nature, and demonstrate deep consideration of all facets of photobook making. The Bridge is a forceful and poetic photographic debut.
 

S T U D E N T    C O M M E N D E D

The Moat
 
by Oliver Hodgkins
Self Published
From Photography Studies College, Melbourne

Country: Australia
Printed by: Bambra Press
RRP: AUD $250

Size: 216 x 250
Pages: 112
Edition of 20
Printing: Digital
Paper: Mohawk Superfine Eggshell White
Format: Linen bound hardcover with debossed photo insert
 

Artist Description
Ollie Hodgkins is a Melbourne-based documentary photographer. He is a recent graduate with a Bachelor of Photography at Photography Studies College in Melbourne, with a major in Photojournalism. Ollie’s work primarily focuses on rural communities in Australia, exploring the postcolonial tensions that reverberate between settlers and the Australian landscape. In 2018, Ollie was accepted into a workshop with World Press Photo ambassador and photobook designer Teun van der Heijden, where he worked amongst photographers such as Adam Ferguson, Ying Ang and Raphaela Rosella. In 2019, Ollie was nominated for the World Press Photo 6x6 Global Talent Program.

Book
The Moat was produced as a third year project at Photography Studies College, Melbourne French Island, off the coast of Western Port Bay in Victoria, has no police station or utility services and falls under no municipal jurisdiction. It is a place of quiet strangeness. Its bucolic idealism is shielded from mainland influence by a body of water. Home to a community of drifters and dreamers, the locals possess a utilitarian pride that masks a wariness of the island’s fragile autonomy. By documenting the island's community, The Moat examines the concept of isolation, along with the allure and aversion to it that permeates in Australian culture.
 
Judges’ Comment

A powerful and focused portrait of an island and its community told through a rich selection of well-sequenced and varied content, including an accompanying booklet insert. Our understanding on a way of life expands, and our interest grows, as pages go by and this unusual locality and its inhabitants are presented.

    
 

F I N A L I S T


Banana Spider Bite
 
by Jordan Madge
Published by Bad News Books

Country: Australia / New Zealand
Printed by Momento Pro
Design: Bad News Books
ISBN: 978-0-4734876-6-9
RRP: AUD $55
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Size: 195 x 240
Pages: 72
Edition of 20
Printing: Digital Offset
Paper: Uncoated Eco 100
Format: Perfect bound softcover
 

Artist Description
Jordan Madge is a photographer from Melbourne, Australia. Primarily adopting the role of observer, he aims at exploring social and physical landscapes. In 2015 he graduated with a BA of Photography. He has been featured in publications such as BJP, VICE, Landscape Stories and Paper-Journal Magazine. During 2017 he held a solo exhibition at the CCP in Melbourne and was in a group show at the Australian Centre for Photography. In 2016, he was awarded the Australian Photobook of the Year and in 2017 The CCP’s Instagram Project winner. He has completed residency programs in Australia and Japan and was most recently selected as a finalist for the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Book
Banana Spider Bite visually documents Madge's voluntary migration to a foreign country - a move inspired by a romantic gesture. It explores his eventual understanding of a new place, and a personal relationship that grew while there. The images are purposely nondescript, and reflect the experiences that influenced the lovers time together. This is Madge's second time as a Photobook Award finalist. He was co-winner of the Australian award in 2015.

Judges’ Comment

A visually captivating work that details the emotional upheaval of moving to a foreign land. Part romantic account and part photographic observation, this compact publication features honest, saturated and often dim and shadowy images that intrigue and involve the viewer. A small pill that works very well.

 

F I N A L I S T

Imaanshaha
 
by Saynab Muse
Published by PhotoForum Inc

Country: New Zealand
Printed by: Print Guy
ISSN: 0111-0411
RRP: Price on request
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Size: 203 x 254
Pages: 62
Edition of 1
Printing: Digital CMYK
Paper: Mohawk Superfine i-Tone Smooth 118gsm
Format: Perfect bound softcover
 

Artist Description
I am a 23 year old Somalian photographic artist who moved to New Zealand with family in 1998 when I was three years old. After a long civil war, which began in 1991, Somalia was no longer safe and my family arrived as refugees in Auckland seeking a calmer place and better livelihood and educational opportunities. According to a 2017 UNHCR report, “More than two million Somalis are currently displaced by a conflict that has lasted over two decades, and an estimated 1.5 million people are internally displaced in Somalia”. I am deaf and study with the help of a sign language interpreter. I am currently in my third year of a Bachelor of Creative Enterprise at Unitec, with a focus on photography.

Book
My first photo book Imaanshaha, which means "arrival”, is an intimate portrait of my family members at home in Mt Roskill, where they share close cultural connections with the local Muslim and Somali community. The photographs in Imaanshaha were taken during the last two years. Leaving Somalia opened up new doors and opportunities for her family: education, cars and a sense of freedom. The book reflects why family is so important to Muse, and how despite leaving their home country, a deep-rooted sense of culture and religion is still embedded within their life. "No matter where I am I cannot forget where I have come from and what makes me who I am." Imaanshaha was designated as #91 in the PhotoForum Inc publication series.  

Judges’ Comment

An important publication, that gives voice to the perspective of young, refugee women making a new life in Aotearoa New Zealand. It explores the author’s evolving identity through the lens of femininity, youth culture, religious and cultural identity. Viewed in the context of racism in Aotearoa, and in the wake of the Christchurch massacre, this is a significant book from one to watch.

    
 

F I N A L I S T


Mongrelism
 
by Jono Rotman
Published by Here Press (London) and Images Vevey (Switzerland)

Country: New Zealand
Printed by MAS Matbaa, Istanbul
Design with Ben Weaver
Edited with Ben Weaver
Created with the Mighty Mongrel Mob Nation of Aotearoa New Zealand
ISBN: 978–0–9935853–8–8
RRP: NZD $95
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Size: 205 x 260
Pages: 380
Edition of 1500
Printing: Offset lithoprint
Paper: Coated and uncoated paper
Format: Cloth bound, embossed hardcover with gatefolds and tipped in fold-outs

Artist Description
Rotman (born 1974, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand) is an artist working between Aotearoa New Zealand and the USA. He lives in San Francisco. Rotman’s work has been exhibited in the USA, Australia and New Zealand and is represented in collections in the USA and Australasia. He is the recipient of the Prix Du Livre Images Vevey (2018) and The Marti Friedlander Photographic Award (2013).

Book
The Mongrel Mob of Aotearoa New Zealand is notorious for extreme violence, and they have long been regarded as the nation’s monsters. Mongrelism depicts portraits of past and present gang members, graphic icons of their subculture, historical photos of their activities, and transcripts of conversations between the photographer and subjects. The resulting publication takes the form of a gang handbook, and offers unique insight into their impenetrable fraternity. The edit, order and sequencing of images is the result of close consultation with members, and reflects their geographic, familial and hierarchical relationships.

The publication reproduces handwritten notes in the albums by each of the four collaborators who had been diagnosed with HIV, alongside revealing 1988 commentary from museum-goers. Also included is an essay by David Herkt and a conversation between the artist and Ron Brownson.
 
Judges’ Comment

Despite its controversial subject, this book is a brilliantly executed publication that is the result of serious collaboration between photographer and subject. The images are powerful, the design cleverly combines classicism and constant surprise with violence and intimacy, and the production is impeccable. Mongrelism is a rebellious and brave approach to extremely demanding terrain.

 

F I N A L I S T

Rear View Mirror
 
by Jonathan May
Self Published

Country: Australia
Printed by: Momento Pro
RRP: Price on request
 

Size: 210 x 219
Pages: 32
Edition of 4
Printing: Digital offset
Format: Cloth bound, section sewn hardcover with text embossing
 

Artist Description
Jonathan May is an award-winning advertising and portrait photographer. May is best known for his long term personal projects and is fascinated by people living on the fringes of society.

Book
Ingo Hansen is the protagonist in this documentary photo book. Struggling with his health and searching for answers, he returns to the desert opal mining town where he grew up - Andamooka. At a crossroads in life, he seeks comfort in reminiscing about the crazy adventures he had, in the harsh landscapes he had them. Hansen soon realises that the thriving outback town he once loved is now bleak and it mercilessly parallels his own impermanence; the harsh winds of life blow not just on the desert but also inside his heart. It takes a certain type of person to love a place like this, with the isolation and the desolation, but his love is plain and clear.

Judges’ Comment

A coherent, well structured, and beautiful photo essay that transcends the familiarity of its theme. The words and pictures are well edited and integrated, the colour palette is striking and consistent, while the varying page compositions help maintain the reader’s engagement with the book. 

    

F I N A L I S T

Still Looking Good
 
by Alice Connew with Oliver Connew
Published by Gloria Books

Country: New Zealand
Printed by KOPA
Text: Oliver Connew
ISBN: 978-3-00-062856-6
RRP: NZD $40
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Size: 104 x 155
Pages: 88
Edition of 300
Printing: Offset printed pages with silk-screen printed cover
Paper: 130 GSM Scandia 2000 White
Format: Section sewn raw board hardcover with debossed photo and exposed spine
 

Artist Description
Alice Connew is a New Zealand-born, Berlin-based photographer. Her work transpires from a seemingly unconscious stream of intangible visual connections which occur throughout daily life. These links often show themselves at a later‚ and usually unexpected‚ time. She is the co-founder of GLORIA Books, a publishing collective focused on the publication of art and photography books.

Book
This pocket-sized book was borne from a desire to experiment with a multi-disciplinary approach to photo book making, bringing together performance, sound, video, photography and design within the pages of a book. It is also a catalogue for the enabling infrastructures of human progress, growth and development - physical, ethical, economic and biological - expressed through photography. Introduced by the transcription of a performance by Oliver, the remaining pages feature images of the performer traversing organic, industrial and stylised landscapes.  

Judges’ Comment

An innovative, conceptually driven photobook that successfully draws on the disciplines of performance and photography. Its compelling design elements, and unorthodox approach to subject matter, keep the viewer thinking as they move through the book. Strong visual elements all come together in a well resolved and original package.

 

F I N A L I S T

Tabriz to Shiraz
 
by Sarah Pannell
Published by Perimeter Editions & Hillvale

Country: Australia
Printed by: Unicum
Design by: Daly & Lyon
Editors: Dan Rule & Justine Ellis
​​
Translations: Aleriza Khaksaran
ISBN: 978-0-9876371-4-7
RRP: $49.00
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Size: 270 x 215
Pages: 64
Edition of 600
Printing: LEUV Offset
Paper: Magno Volume 115 GSM
Format: Printed hardcover case with single signature

Artist Description
Sarah Pannell (b. 1988, Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian documentary photographer whose work concerns culture, landscape, tradition and community. Travelling regularly, Sarah's work observes how a landscape is marked by both history and accelerated modernisation, capturing the tension between these different influences and the result when past and present collide.

Book
Tabriz to Shiraz is the debut book by Melbourne-based photographer Sarah Pannell, drawing on a vibrant series of photos taken during her travels through Iran in 2016 and 2017. Beyond mere travelogue, Tabriz to Shiraz flits between the poetic, intimate, incisive and playful in its un-layering of contemporary Iran's visual, cultural and architectural languages and subjectivities. Spanning portraiture, landscape, architecture and impromptu formalist photography, Pannell offers different views on a place that is at once familiar, foreign and happily jarring in its multiplicity.

Judges’ Comment

A superior travel diary revealing the journey of a woman as she encounters everyday life, traditions, and new friendships in Iran. The photography is exquisite, sensitive and compelling, while the design is sympathetic to the images and allows them to do their work. The delicate single signature opens flat, making it easy to enjoy the spreads and to focus on the rhythm and flow of the edit. 

    
 

F I N A L I S T

The Man from Apophenia
 
by David Symons
Self Published

Country: Australia
Printed by: Momento Pro
RRP: Price on request

Size: 148 x 210
Pages: 77
Edition of 1
Printing: Digital offset
Paper: Mohawk Eggshell
Format: Cloth bound, section sewn hardcover with text embossing
 

Artist Description
David Symons is a Brisbane based artist. Born in Scotland, he studied photography in Western Australia in the 1980s. David has exhibited locally and nationally and has been a finalist prizes including The Olive Cotton Award and the IRIS Award. His photographic work is held in The Art Gallery of Western Australia Collection. The idea that the photograph sits precariously on the edge of the real and imagined is the great appeal of the medium to David. He believes that photo book is an ideal platform to explore the metafictional (or metaphotographic) qualities of the photograph image. The Man from Apophenia is the realization of this idea in book form.

Book
Symons is fascinated by the way photography sits on the edge of the real and imagined, so it is no surprise that apophenia, the condition where human's perceive connections between unrelated things, is the driving force behind this book. He couples images that are reminiscent of the film noir and police evidence photos, with a low-voltage current of psychoanalytical and surrealist themes, to create a narrative of unreliable evidence. The reader is left wondering, looking for patterns, connections and meanings, and in doing so their biases, fears, and delusions shape the reading of the work and may lead to false conclusions.
 
Judges’ Comment

A stark and formally arresting book with many wonderful and compelling visual elements. The sense of juxtaposition and the striking edits that drive this book, married with gatefolds, rich black and white prints, and the shifting formal registers of full bleed and white borders around a grouping of well-considered and strong images, make it a well resolved package.

 
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A W A R D   D E T A I L S



Momento Pro Print Credit Prizes

  • Photobook Winner: $2,000
  • Student Winner: $1,500
  • Photobook Commended: $500 each
  • Student Commended: $750
  • Finalists: $500 each
  • People's Choice: $750


Entry period

  • 15 November 2019 - Entries open
  • 15 January 2020 - Entries close
For books produced or published between 1 January 2018 and 31 Dec 2019


Ceremony

Friday 6 March at the opening of the Photobook/NZ Festival, at Te Papa, Wellington

 

Judges

  • Ann Shelton, Honorary Research Fellow, School of Art Whiti o Rehua, Massey University, Te Kunenga Ki Purehuroa, University of New Zealand
  • Ángel Luis Gonzalez Fernandez, Founder & CEO of Photo Ireland (Ireland)
  • Rachel Knepfer, Picture Editor, Creative Director & Producer (Australia)
  • Claire Murdoch, Head of Publishing, Penguin Random House (NZ)
  • Scott Bundy, Founder/Creative Director, Bundy Agency (Australia)

Exhibition

Date Venue
6-8 March Photobook/NZ Festival, Wellington
18-22 March Ilam, Christchurch
1-4 April Form Gallery, Whitecliffe College, Auckland
2-3 May PHOTO 2020, Melbourne
28 Nov - 24 Dec PhotoIreland, Dublin

 

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