The Photographers’ Gallery revealed details of the 2026 exhibition of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize taking place in London this March.
Featuring work by Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, Amak Mahmoodian and Rene Matić, the exhibition will be at The Photographers’ Gallery, from 6 March until 7 June 2026.
Originally established in 1996, the Prize identifies and rewards artists for an exhibition or book that has made a significant contribution to photography in the past 12 months. Over its long history, the Prize is renowned for spotlighting outstanding and innovative work and celebrating the work of leading international photographers.
The 2026 shortlisted work features collaborative photographic projects; long- term investigative documentary photography; installations, video and sound pieces; and experimental conceptual photography.
Themes of exile and memory; gender inequalities and advocacy; identity and belonging, subculture and class in contemporary life; and the shifting boundaries between photographic fact and fiction are all explored in this year’s international shortlist.
The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced on Thursday 14 May, with each of the other shortlisted artists receiving £5,000. The work will be on show at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt from 3 September 2026 to 24 January 2027.
The 2026 shortlisted artists and projects are:
Jane Evelyn Atwood (b. 1947, New York, USA) is shortlisted for her publication Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a revised, bilingual reprint of two works originally published in 2000 and updated by Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille in 2024.
Atwood’s Too Much Time – Women in Prison stems from a ten-year investigation during which she accompanied incarcerated women in forty prisons across nine countries in the 1990s. Through research and empathy, Atwood documented the lived realities of female inmates: limited access to hygienic facilities, a lack of gynaecological and mental health care, and stark inequalities compared to their male counterparts. The intimacy of her black- and-white images is rooted in her long-term commitment and unwavering
advocacy for women in prison – a cause Atwood continues to champion today. Since its original publication, Atwood’s message has only become more urgent. Globally, the female prison population has grown by 50-60% since 2000. Driven by a deep commitment to social justice and a desire to expose systems of exclusion, Atwood brings visibility to lives and stories many choose to ignore.
Weronika Gęsicka (b. 1984, Włocławek, Poland) is shortlisted for the publication Encyclopaedia, published by BLOW UP PRESS in November 2024.
Encyclopaedia draws on a phenomenon: fake entries intentionally inserted into encyclopaedias, dictionaries and lexicons, originally devised as traps to catch copyright violations or as a playful way for editors to leave their mark on the text. These fictitious facts subtly contribute to the erosion of trust in sources once considered authoritative. In Encyclopaedia, Gęsicka presents several hundred of these fabricated definitions, sourced from historical publications purchased at online auctions.
By visually reinterpreting fake entries using manipulated stock photos and AI- generated imagery, Gęsicka highlights the tension between truth and invention, as well as the fragile line between fact and fiction. In a world saturated with information, where news, advertising and fiction increasingly overlap, how can we distinguish what is ‘real’? The work is a humorous reminder that knowledge, once perceived as stable and objective, is now a shifting terrain.
Amak Mahmoodian (b. 1980, Shiraz, Iran) is shortlisted for the exhibition One Hundred and Twenty Minutes at the Bristol Photo Festival, UK (16 October – 17 November 2024).
Spanning photography, poetry, text, drawing and video, the exhibition explores emotional and psychological landscapes in exile: how new lives are formed within dreams and the persistent return to the past. Over six years, Mahmoodian worked closely with sixteen collaborators from fourteen countries. Their long-term conversations focused on recurring dreams and the effects of exile on memory and identity.
A multidisciplinary artist and educator, Mahmoodian began her career in Iran and has been based in the UK since 2010, unable to return to her homeland. For her, dreams offer a vital connection to a lost home and family, between reality and imagination. In One Hundred and Twenty Minutes – the amount of time adults and children dream each night – Mahmoodian gives visual and poetic form to her collaborators’ dreams. Together, these elements invite us into an immersive experience of shared dreaming. At a time when ideological shifts continue to marginalise migrants and displaced communities, Mahmoodian imagines a world without borders, one where shared dreams form bridges across geography, politics and time.
Rene Matić (b. 1997, Peterborough, UK) is shortlisted for the exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, at CCA Berlin, Germany (8 November 2024 – 15 February 2025).
Featuring newly produced photographs, installations and sound pieces, AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH is rooted in identity and belonging, subculture, class and family. Their diaristic, snapshot-like photography captures everyday moments with poetic intimacy. The images, combined with collected objects, film and sound, form a vivid and layered portrait of contemporary life.
Matić’s practice spans across photography, film and sculpture, converging in a meeting place they describe as “rude(ness)” – an evidencing and honouring of the in-between. In a climate of rising right-wing populism and performative compassion, they turn to interpersonal relationships as spaces of resistance and care, how people hold on to one another, and learn to live with vulnerability – despite, or in defiance of, so-called contemporary ‘truths’. For Matić, intimacy, vulnerability and desire become tools for survival.
Shoair Mavlian, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, said of the 2026 shortlist:
“The Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize 2026 shortlist demonstrates the pertinent themes being investigated by photographers today. Whether their work was shown as a book or an exhibition, the shortlisted artists all invite us to reconsider how stories are told and who gets to tell them. We look forward to sharing their work in London this year.”
Special artist talks at The Photographers’ Gallery:
Tuesday 30 April 2026: Amak Mahmoodian
Tuesday 12 May 2026: Jane Evelyn Atwood
More talks and events to be announced soon.
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2026
6 March – 7 June 2026
The Photographers’ Gallery
16–18 Ramillies Street
London W1F 7LW
+44(0)20 7087 9300
www.tpg.org.uk
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation
www.deutsche-boerse.com
