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Esko Männikkö has received the 2008 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, which is awarded annually to an international photographer who has made a significant contribution to the medium during the past year. Männikkö was presented with the £30,000 (about $60,500) prize during a ceremony on Wednesday, March 5th. Männikkö lives and works in Oulu.
He is known for his realistic photos which often depict animals, houses, and other objects that have caught his eye in the periphery of Eastern Finland and the USA alike. The photographer won the 2008 prize for his retrospective Cocktails 1990-2007, a collection of portraits, landscape and still life shots documenting life on the margins of society. The photographs were drawn from some of Männikkö’s notable series, including The Female Pike, which shows bachelors living in isolation in the Finnish countryside, and his ongoing project Harmony Sisters, which features abstract, still-life-inspired photographs of animals shot in zoos and on farms around the world. “Esko Männikkö’s pictorial risk-taking, combined with his poetic approach to dealing with universal issues such as alienation and identity, greatly impressed the 2008 Jury,” said Brett Rogers, the Chair of the Jury and Director of contest co-sponsor The Photographers’ Gallery, in a press release. “In his books and on the gallery walls, Männikkö has successfully created an authentic and compelling new photographic vision that fuses social documentary and fine art.”
This year’s jury revealed a preference for socially minded images. The other three finalists—British photographer John Davies, Danish photographer Jacob Holdt and American photographer Fazal Sheikh—also documented social concerns. Davies’ black-and-white images captured changes in the post-industrial United Kingdom.
Holdt was nominated for his book Jacob Holdt, United States 1970-1975, which documents the lives of people he met while hitchhiking across the United States, and the artist-activist Sheikh was considered for his portraits of different communities around the globe. Each finalist was awarded £3,000 (about $6,050).
This year’s jurors included Huis Marseille Director Els Barents, UK photographer Jem Southam, Haus der Kunst Chief Curator Thomas Weski and Deutsche Börse Art Collection Curator Anne-Marie Beckmann. Rogers chaired the jury.
All four finalists’ images are on display at The Photographers’ Gallery in London until April 6th.
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