The Prix Camera Clara, attribuated by the Fondation Grésigny, is awarded annually to artists working with view cameras. Founded in 2012 by Joséphie de Bodinat Moreno and artistic director Audrey Bazin, it is essential now, at a time when there seems to be a growing confusion between media, performance and artistic qualification, to position oneself at the “reverse angle,” or rather “off-camera,” in this fashionable “anything goes” approach to photography.
Working with a view camera reintroduces to the process a certain slowness, which helps the artist take his or her time to reflect on the light, inviting the viewer to return to the origins of photography. Given the large number of submissions and the rising reputation of the prize beyond Europe’s borders, there’s reason to think that the Prix Camera Clara has bright days ahead.
In 2014, the prize was awarded to Darek Fortas for his series Changing Room. Muriel Vega (France) and Nigel Bennett (USA) were the two other finalists.
“Changing Rooms” (2011-2013) by Darek Fortas
Between 2011 and 2013 Darek Fortas made multiple trips to the largest coal mining complex in the European Union located in Upper Silesia, Poland in order to expand his previous body of work “Coal Story” (2011).
Fortas‘ new project, by offering a typological classification of miners’ changing rooms, aims to draw attention to the cultural and socio-political dimension of industrial architecture – with particular emphasis on the history of the communist resistance movement in the 1980s that resulted in a major socio-political transformation of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989.
EXHIBITION
Central DUPON Images
From December 17th 2014 to January 2015
74 rue Joseph de Maistre
75018 Paris
France
http://www.centraldupon.com
INFORMATIONS
Fondation Grésigny
Prix de la Photo Camera Clara
1, rue du Général Largeau
75016 Paris
France
[email protected]
http://www.prixcameraclara.com
http://fondationgresigny.fr
