The Photographers’ Gallery in London has announced the four artists shortlisted for the 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize: Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, Amak Mahmoodian, and Rene Matić. The prestigious annual award recognizes artists whose work has made a significant impact on photography over the past 12 months.
Now in its third decade, the prize is known for celebrating artists whose work challenges the boundaries of photographic practice. Previous winners have included Juergen Teller, Andreas Gursky, and Deana Lawson. The 2026 shortlist spans long-term documentary, conceptual experimentation, multimedia installation, and collaborative projects.
Atwood, an American artist, is recognized for Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a newly revised bilingual edition of her landmark book originally published in 2000. Based on a decade spent documenting the lives of incarcerated women across nine countries, the work remains timely as global rates of female incarceration continue to rise.
Polish artist Gęsicka is shortlisted for Encyclopaedia, published in 2024 by BLOW UP PRESS and Jednostka Gallery. The book compiles real fake entries—deliberate fabrications once used mainly by editors of reference works such as dictionaries to trap plagiarists—and reimagines them using manipulated stock photography and AI-generated imagery, raising questions about misinformation and visual truth.
Mahmoodian’s “One Hundred and Twenty Minutes,” shown at the 2024 Bristol Photo Festival, reflects on exile through dreamscapes shared by migrants across 14 countries. Using photography, poetry, and video, the exhibition by the Iranian artist considered how dreams sustain connections to home in the face of displacement.
British artist Matić, the youngest name on the list, is nominated for their exhibition “AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH,” at CCA Berlin, for which they were also shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2025. Through diaristic photography, sound, and installations, Matić explores identity, class, and family in Britain today. Their work centers intimacy and vulnerability as forms of resistance in a fractured social landscape.
An exhibition of the shortlisted projects will be on view at The Photographers’ Gallery from March 6th to June 7th, 2026, and at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Frankfurt from September 3rd, 2026, to January 17th, 2027. The winner will be announced on May 14th, 2026, and receive £30,000 ($40,244). Each shortlisted artist will receive £5,000 ($6,707).
