From the 50 short listed titles, 3 winners were selected by an international jury of experts and announced on Saturday June 6th during the Fotobookfestival Kassel. The winner of the First Prize is given the opportunity to realize his dummy as a »real« book by k-books and will be reported on in the magazine European Photography. The Second and Third Prize are book production vouchers given by k-books.
MAIN JURY 2015
Gabriele Franziska Goetz (Professor for Visual Communication at the University Kassel, Amsterdam)
Erik Kessels (Artist, Curator, Publisher Kesselskramer Publishing, Amsterdam)
Curt Holtz (Publisher, Prestel Publishing, Munich)
Andreas Müller-Pohle (Artist, Publisher, European Photography, Berlin)
Markus Schaden (The PhotoBookMuseum, Cologne)
Martin Parr (Photographer, Bristol)
Richard Reisen (Verlag Kettler, k-books, Cologne)
FIRST PRIZE 2015
Jan McCullough »Home Instruction Manual«
« The dummy book Home Instruction Manual entered in the competition by Jan McCullough is a real discovery in 2015. Jan is a photographer from Belfast with a weak spot for manuals, books that tell you how to do things. For this project she searched the internet for tips on how to build your perfect home. After collecting all the tips, Jan rented a house and followed all the instructions given to her. She photographed the end result; a home with a forced personality. Something you can’t say about Jan McCullough, a natural talent to watch out for. » – Erik Kessels
SECOND PRIZE 2015
Kumiko Motoki »White Fang«
« Kumiko Motokis’s White Fang was for me perhaps the most exciting book dummy submitted to this year’s Kassel Fotobookfestival. Based on an actual dog fight that took place in Aomori in Northern Japan in early 2014, this slim soft-cover publication moves cleverly between colour and black-and-white imagery: colour for the build-up before the event; black and white for the fight scenes; colour for the brutal outcome. Varying between formal, straight-up portraiture, and Antoine D’Agataesque blurred imagery, along with well-placed inserts on the history of dog fighting in Japan — which is only banned in some areas across the country — this book perfectly manages to walk the fine line between the gruesomeness of this ancient and brutal practice and the well-crafted aesthetic of a modern-day photo book. » – Curt Holtz, Prestel Publishing
THIRD PRIZE 2015
Oliver Blobel »Amateure«
« Oliver Blobel’s book on German amateur camera clubs is both a funny and illuminating body of work. Taking a subject matter that I have never seen explored before , he shows the club outings, the print competitions being judged and studio sessions of these camera enthusiasts. This is photography at it’s best, where an apparently boring subject is turned into a hilarious and yet very dry set of photos. » – Martin Parr
