Rene Matić was named the winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in the field. They received the £30,000 ($40,250) prize for their exhibition “AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH,” which closed at CCA Berlin in February.
Matić, who is based in London, works across photography, sculpture, sound, poetry, and film to examine social dynamics of race, gender, and intimacy through the lens of national symbols (flags are a recurring motif). Their practice includes an excavation of British subculture, including the “rude boy,” a fashion and ideological formation that emerged in the aftermath of postcolonial resistance movements.
Part photography, part sculpture, and part installation, AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH positioned itself within the rise of right-wing populism, asking how the personal intersects with—and survives—the political. It extended an earlier exhibition staged at Vitrine Gallery titled “Born British Die British,” which foregrounded Matić’s relationship with their father.
“Conversation about representation politics comes up so much in photography and in image-making, but we never move past that,” Matić said in an interview with the gallery. “We don’t talk about what we want to be represented as doing. I want to be represented as being cared for. There are a lot of images of us having violence put on us out there. I want to show a counter-image.”
Born in 1997, Matić is among the youngest awardees in the prize’s 40-year history and the first British recipient in more than a decade. They were also a contender for the 2025 Turner Prize, making them the second-youngest nominee in the institution’s history.
They were selected from a shortlist that included Iranian photographer Amak Mahmoodian, American photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood, and Polish visual artist Weronika Gęsicka. Each artist will receive £5,000, and their work will be exhibited at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from September 3 through January 17, 2027.
