War and Colonial Legacy, as Seen Through the Lenses of Deutsche Börse Prize Finalists
Hidden human labour, the perception of veiled women and the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe are among the themes examined by the shortlisted artists for the 30th edition of the £30,000 photography prize.
The invisible labour behind automation, the legacy of colonial photographic practice, the constant flux of life and death and Russia’s war in Ukraine are the topics explored by the four finalists in the 2027 edition of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
Salvatore Vitale, Hoda Afshar, Sasha Kurmaz and Lotus L Kang are shortlisted for the 30th edition of the prize, which identifies and rewards artists for an exhibition or a book in Europe that has made a significant contribution to photography in the past 12 months. Previous winners of the £30,000 award, established by the Photographers’ Gallery in London in 1996, include Cao Fei, Lebohang Kganye, Rene Matić and Juergen Teller.
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Shoair Mavlian, director of The Photographers’ Gallery, said: “As we reach the 30th anniversary of the prize giving, the 2027 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize shortlist represents the expansiveness of photography and how it’s used to explore ideas of resistance, conflict, memory and identity in our contemporary age.”
Anne-Marie Beckmann, director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, added: “From century-old photographic archives to radical contemporary experiments, the 2027 shortlist proves how urgently photography speaks to our times.”
Salvatore Vitale is shortlisted for his exhibition Sabotage at Photo Elysée, Switzerland, in which he examines how the digital economy is sustained by hidden human labour. Working with South African freelancers and using a combination of photography, film and sculpture, Sabotage explores ways in which today’s digital infrastructures reproduce colonial and historical patterns of exploitation and extraction and how resistance to systems designed to regulate human labour might occur.
The central element of Hoda Afshar’s exhibition Performing the Invisible is The Fold, a series which investigates how colonial photographic practice continues to influence the way we see and consider bodies, particularly veiled women. In the show at Paris’ Musée du Quai Branly, Afshar re-examined the archive of French psychiatrist and photographer Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault (1872–1934), using the motif of the mirror to disrupt photographs Gatian de Clérambault took in Morocco, twisting the focus to make the viewer (and the act of looking) the object of investigation.
Hoda Afshar, From the series The Fold (2019-2025). Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Australia.
Sasha Kurmaz began the work that became the publication Red Horse (November 2025) when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Handmade collages of life in war-ravaged Ukraine—featuring photographs, found objects, notes, drawings and newspaper cuttings—tell the story of Kurmaz’s own life and the lives of those around him, all trying to exist in an atmosphere of constant danger. Red Horse questions how war, violence and states of emergency affect society, democracy and individuals.
At this year’s Venice Biennale, Lotus L Kang’s exhibition at the Bvlgari Pavilion, The face of desire is loss, presents an immersive installation considering how bodies and memories change over time. Kang suspends lengths of photographic film from steel joists, where they respond to light and humidity. The show also includes sculptures of tatami mats and crying birds, evoking bodily states of rest, dream, recovery and death.
Each of the prize’s shortlisted artists receive £5,000, with the winner announced in April 2027. Selected work from the four shortlisted projects will be on show at The Photographers’ Gallery in London from 10 March–6 June 2027 and the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt from 19 June–26 September 2027.
