News

Here's some good news that we've had to hold back on until the official press release came through. Needless to say we're very excited to have the opportunity to be working with Steidl and can't wait to get the ball rolling.


Photobook Prize for Young Photographers: Steidl Student Book Award The Steidl Student Book Award is a new prize for young photographers to be presented every two years. European universities and art academies with a focus on photography are invited to nominate book projects from students who have graduated no longer than two years before. A changing independent jury of critics, curators and teachers then selects the winning book project. The prize itself consists in the realisation and distribution of the book by Gerhard Steidl and Steidl Publishers. The inaugural award was presented this year as part of the “next 1” forum in Essen and was given to the project 8X’s by Ben Absalom and Sam Bardsley, who had been nominated by the European Centre of Photographic Research at the University of Wales in Newport. The jury consisted of Ute Eskildsen (Director of the Photography Collection in the Museum Folkwang, Essen), Silke Grossmann (Professor of Photography at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg), Kristina Hasenpflug (Consultant for Culture at the Wüstenrot Stiftung, Ludwigsburg), Elke Seeger (Professor for Photography and Photo Design at the Folkwang Universität der Künste), and Kerstin Stremmel (art historian, Cologne). In 8X’s Absalom and Bardsley explore and revive the landscape of their childhood in South Wales, a landscape built atop a network of tunnels originally used in 1939 by the military and later by civilians. 8X’s employs different photographic genres, combining them with contemporary and historical images as well as diverse texts. The book will be released in 2011 by Steidl Publishers.

Also Brighton Photo Biennial is opening on the first weekend of October, it's curated by Martin Parr and looks to be showing some very exciting new work. It is also the going to be the worlds first ever frameless photography festival so should be quite interesting. Here's the link to the official site. www.bpb.org.uk 

Related to this we showed the project 8x's at the last Biennial fringe festival as part of bystander collective. www.bystandercollective.org.uk