The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2027 reveals its shortlist... and proves that photography is no longer just about taking pictures

A woman studies large sheets of tinted photographic film hanging from steel beams in a sunlit gallery — *The face of desire is loss*, Bvlgari Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2026 by Lotus Kang. Courtesy the artist, Bvlgari, Commonwealth and Council, Franz Kaka, Kukje Gallery and Esther Schipper Berlin/Paris/Seoul (Image credit: Andrea Rossetti)

Most photographers spend their lives protecting film from light. Lotus L. Kang does the opposite.

In her installation, shown above, long sheets of photographic film hang unfixed from steel beams. As light and humidity reach them, they slowly change color, and develop “bruises, blood and bile-like hues”.

It’s one of four projects shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2027, which rewards artists for an exhibition or book in Europe that's made a significant contribution to photography. In their different ways, they all show how far the discipline has come from simply pointing a camera and pressing a button.

Beyond the veil

Iranian-born Hoda Afshar is shortlisted for her exhibition Performing the Invisible, which draws on the archive of the French psychiatrist Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault.

In the early 20th century, the latter took thousands of photographs of veiled women in Morocco to explore his psychoanalytic ideas around covering and fantasy. Now, in the 21st century, Afshar uses mirrors, video and sound to reverse the focus. Instead of the veiled women in the original pictures, the subject becomes the act of looking itself.

A grid of small archival photographs of veiled women in Morocco — From the series *The Fold* (2019-2025). Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Australia. (Image credit: Hoda Afshar)

A curved screen in a dark gallery shows six identical images of a woman in glasses, with Spanish subtitles below — From the series *The Fold* (2019-2025). Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Australia. (Image credit: Hoda Afshar)

Long sheets of amber and yellow film hang in folds from perforated steel joists — *The face of desire is loss,* Bvlgari Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2026 by Lotus Kang. Courtesy the artist, Bvlgari, Commonwealth and Council, Franz Kaka, Kukje Gallery and Esther Schipper Berlin/Paris/ Seoul. (Image credit: Andrea Rossetti)

Loss and destruction

Toronto-born Lotus L. Kang’s installation, The face of desire is loss, explores how bodies change over time, what we remember and what gets lost along the way. Alongside her lengths of unfixed photographic film, there are sculptures of tatami mats, cast objects of crying birds, a film of tidal mudflats and 49 bottles of spirits. (Why 49? In Buddhism, it's the number of days a soul spends between death and rebirth. So now you know.)

Ukrainian artist Sasha Kurmaz is shortlisted for her book, Red Horse. An 800-page visual diary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it combines documentary photographs with notes, drawings, newspaper cuttings and found objects that capture his experiences and those of the people around him. On one page, a handwritten note records the 15m width of a bomb crater beside a residential building.

Finally, Italian artist Salvatore Vitale is shortlisted for SABOTAGE. Made in collaboration with South African freelancers, it looks at the hidden human labor behind the digital economy, from surveillance to algorithmic control.

Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations, its images include a man smashing a laptop on a rocky hillside.

A collage on yellow paper of a bomb crater between ruined apartment blocks, with a handwritten note about its size — From *Red Horse* (2022–2025) (Image credit: Sasha Kurmaz)

A collage on brown card pairing a close-up of bloodshot eyes with a burnt-out apartment block. — From *Red Horse* (2022–2025) (Image credit: Sasha Kurmaz)

Computer parts fly through the air from a fiery explosion on a pile of rocks — *Listen All Y’All, It’s a Sabotage*, 2022. From the series *Death by GPS*, 2022–2026 (Image credit: Salvatore Vitale)

Colour film still of a man holding a laptopraised above his head with the aim of hitting it against therocky ground that he is standing on. — (Image credit: Salvatore Vitale)

“From century-old photographic archives to radical contemporary experiments, the 2027 shortlist proves how urgently photography speaks to our times,” says Anne-Marie Beckmann, director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.

The winner, who'll be announced in April, will get £30,000 ($40k), and each of the other three will get £5,000 ($6,665).

Work by all four artists will be shown at The Photographers’ Gallery in London from March 10 - June 6 2027, and then at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn, near Frankfurt, from June 19 to September 26.

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Tom May is a freelance writer and editor specializing in art, photography, design and travel. He has been editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. He has also worked for a wide range of mainstream titles including The Sun, Radio Times, NME, T3, Heat, Company and Bella.