Photobook Award of the year 2020 finalists selected
Association of Photographic Artists and the Finnish Museum of Photography award Photobook Award of the year for the fourth time. A total of 22 high-quality proposals were received by the deadline, from which the jury nominated five finalists.
The five finalists for the Photobook Award of the year 2020 are:
Pauliina Heinänen: Kotimatkalla / På väg hem
Sanna Kannisto: Observing Eye
Maria Lax: Some Kind of Heavenly Fire
Teemu Mäki: Miten olla mies tai nainen tai jotain muuta
Santeri Tuori: Time is No Longer Round
You can order the books here: www.shop.hippolyte.fi/kirjakauppa
The finalists were chosen by a jury consisting of museum director Taina Myllyharju, photographic artist Ari Saarto and the winner of the Photobook Award 2018, photographer Filippo Zambon.
In addition to nominating the finalists for the Photobook Award, the jury awarded an honorable mention to Arno Rafael Minkkinen's monograph Minkkinen - Two Hundred Seasons published in 2019.
Winner of the competition will be chosen by photographic artist Nelli Palomäki, and will be published on 12.4.2021. The annual award for the author of a meritorious photographic art book is 4,000 euros in total; 2,000 euros for the winner and 500 euros for each finalist.
Kotimatkalla / På väg hem is an ensemble of two identically sized photo books packed together in one box. The diptych format supports the theme of the books: Pauliina Heinänen has learned about the experiences of both her grandmother and grandfather as Finnish war children in Sweden. What kind of a trace does rootlessness leave in a person? The photographer approaches the questions of trauma through sensitive, symbolic images and short texts, vividly piecing together various materials through graphic design. The craft-like binding gives the personal and emotional book its final touch.
Photographs and texts: Pauliina Heinänen
Languages: Finnish, Swedish
Graphic Design: Pauliina Heinänen
Colour separation: Petri Kuokka / Aarnipaja Ky
Publisher: monography
Published: May 2020
Pages: Two separate books, 88 & 88 pages
Edition: 300 kpl
Printer: Tallinna Raamatutrükikoda Oü
ISBN: 978-952-94-2562-4
“While shooting I’m close to the birds and observe them, but also they are actively watching me. From my point of view the observation is mutual.” Sanna Kannisto’s book about our feathered friends is astonishing, asthe reader gets to see and admire the birds from a close distance in the extremely detailed images. The book is rich and measured in its artistic endeavour both in structure and every detail. It also provides a background on Kannisto’s working methods at the interface between science and art: Kannisto has collaborated for years with researchers around the world.
Photographs: Sanna Kannisto
Texts: Barbara Hofmann-Johnson
Language: English
Graphic Design: Juha Nenonen / Bigger Splash
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag GbmH
Published: August 2020
Pages: 144
Edition: 1500 kpl
ISBN: 978-3-7757-4791-2
Maria Lax’s small, compact book takes readers to regions succumbed to UFO fever in Northern Finland in the 1960s. Lax’s poetic journey to a truly peculiar historical moment begins with her lost grandfather’s scrapbook and notes. The willingness to believe in extra-terrestrials exist in parallel with the fears generated by the structural changes in agricultural life of the time. The book skillfully combines different materials - mysterious night imagery, old family album photos, scraps held together by tape – to create a concise and visually compellind world outside of everyday experiences.
Photographs and texts: Maria Lax
Languages: English
Graphic Design: Jan Hillman
Publisher: Setanta Books
Published: February 2020
Pages: 84
Edition: 750 kpl
ISBN: 978-0956220530
Teemu Mäki: Miten olla mies tai nainen tai jotain muuta
The book, comprising a wide spectrum of portraits and an abundance of Teemu Mäki’s own writing, is like a route of forking paths where the artist’s scrutiny of gender roles offered by society become entangled with questions aroung e.g. family relations, aging, death and art. A common thread in the portraits is the photographer's strict pursuit towards sincerity – while being conscious of the threat of the impossibility of the task itself. The diversity of the personas depicted, together with the revealing, almost laboratory-like, lighting of the images, and the tapestry of texts create a strong photo book with a voice of its own.
Photographs: Teemu Mäki
Texts: Teemu Mäki
Language: Finnish
Graphic Design: Ville Karppanen
Colour separation: Kari Lahtinen
Publisher: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Parvs
Published: December 2020
Pages: 191
Edition: 500 kpl
Printer: Jelgavas Tipogafija
ISBN: 978-952-7226-67-4
This large scale book brings together Santeri Tuori’s extensive collection of trees and skies from recent years, including images e.g. from Kökar island where Tuori has photographed the same places and trees for 14 years, over and over again. The book’s layered images of trees and skies are composed of overlapping photographs taken at varied times; the result is like condensed time. Tuori’s photographs are seductively beautiful and the book as a physical object, with its high-quality print and insightful paper selections, is exquisitely polished.
Photographs: Santeri Tuori
Texts: Alistair Hicks, Birta Gudjonsdottir & Timothy Persons
Languages: English
Graphic Design: Hans Gremmen
Colour separation: Petri Kuokka / Aarnipaja Ky
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag GmbH
Published: February 2020
Pages: 180
Edition: 1500 kpl
Printer: Livonia Press
ISBN: 978-3-7757-4701-1
Honorable mention
Arno Rafael Minkkinen: Minkkinen – Two Hundred Seasons
In addition to nominating the finalists for the Photobook Award, the jury awarded an honorable mention to Arno Rafael Minkkinen's magnificent monograph Minkkinen - Two Hundred Seasons published in 2019. The large-scale photobook brings together a 50 years-worth of lifelong works by the photographer born in Helsinki in 1945, but who has lived his adult life in the United States. The works are characterized by a fascinatingly surreal undertone and the use of one’s own body. Throughout his career Minkkinen has photographed his naked body combined with nature or urban landscape. The book has a high quality in terms of its graphic look, material choices and print quality. For decades, Minkkinen has maintained close contacts with Finland and Finnish photographers. He brought with him a breeze of the international scene to his native country as early as in the 1970s. Minkkinen has been an important, charismatic teacher for many generations of photographers at Aalto University and its predecessor University of Art and Design Helsinki.
Photographs: Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Texts: Keith F. Davis, Vicki Goldberg, Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Language: English
Graphic Design: Martin Lutz
Colour separation: Erik Cleve
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag
Printer: Grammlich Offsetdruckerei, Pliezhausen
Published: November 2019
Pages: 330
Edition: 3000 kpl
ISBN: 978-3-86828-922-0
More more information, please contact:
Director Henna Harri, Association of Photographic Artists
henna.harri(a)hippolyte.fi, p. 040 591 0770
