Hope
2021.09.11 - 2021.10.24
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Information
Exhibition Duration
September 11, 2021 to
October 24, 2021
Time
Tuesday-Sunday, 10:30-17:30
(last entry 17:00)
Ticket
Full Price: ¥40 / Student Price: ¥30
Introduction
“Hope” features the work of twelve leading photographers hailing from eight nations, who were shortlisted for the eighth cycle of the Prix Pictet. The theme of this iteration is, as the exhibition title suggests, “Hope”. SCoP is delighted to present the debut of the Prix Pictet in the Chinese mainland. “Hope” comes to Shanghai after first showing at the V&A Museum, London, and a tour at major museums around the world.
Focusing On
Environmental Issues and
Attracting the World's Attention
The Prix Pictet is the world’s leading prize for photography and sustainability. It was founded in 2008, with the aim of harnessing the power of photography to draw global attention to issues facing humanity and, in particular, the environment. Photographers nominated for the award are chosen for their use of a variety of photographic languages that interpret specific themes in the field of sustainable development. Past themes include “Water”, “Earth”, “Growth”, “Power”, “Consumption”, “Disorder”, and “Space”.
The Prix Pictet takes a global view of the topics of our time and attracts an extremely high level of participation. Photographers previously shortlisted for the award include Edward Burtynsky, Rineke Dijkstra, Andreas Gursky, Taryn Simon, Thomas Ruff, among other renowned contemporary photographers. Their works come at the various issues of our age from a point of deep personal reflection. To date, with the contributions of an international jury of respected professionals in the field, the Prix Pictet has consistently maintained a high quality in the selection of shortlisted works both in terms of content and the innovative photographic language used. After 13 years of development, the Prix Pictet casts influence beyond the field of photography, conveying the importance of environmental protection to the wider world of art and culture.
Looking At
Sustainability and
Seeking Hope in Adversity
Quotes
The exhibition at SCoP presents the works of the twelve shortlisted artists of “Hope”, offering a wide range of creative possibilities and a strong set of connections to Prix Pictet’s overriding theme of sustainability. Recycling, reforestation, rewilding, science – advances in medicine, and technological solutions for global environmental problems are just some of the issues explored through an artistic lens. The shortlisted artists examine positive actions on sustainability that are beginning to emerge, in contrast to the alarming analysis in the global media that constantly assails us: hope in the face of adversity.
The laureate of this cycle is Joana Choumali from the Côte d’Ivoire. Her winning series “Ça va aller” (“It will be okay”) was taken three weeks after the terrorist attacks in Grand Bassam in March, 2016. She chose to complete the scenes she captured by embroidering directly onto the images with colorful stitching. A slow and meditative gesture that reflects upon a tragic loss of life, while simultaneously drawing out time, as the healer of wounds and carrier of hope.
SCoP is delighted to work with the Prix Pictet to host the exhibition “Hope”. Through the works of these twelve fine international photographers, visitors can experience a global view on environmental issues, gaining insight into the diverse achievements and humanistic concepts in the field of sustainable development around the world. For the duration of “Hope”, SCoP will host a series of public programs to further expand on the themes explored in the exhibition.
Shortlisted Photographers
“This will be the first time that Shanghai, China's most global city, and its public will be able to see the results of the Prix Pictet first hand. At a time of ongoing global uncertainties, there is no more timely subject to explore than “Hope”, which serves as the theme uniting the works of photographers who made it into this cycle’s selection. SCoP is honored to be the Prix Pictet's partner in hosting “Hope”, marking the debut of the Prix Pictet in Shanghai. I know I speak on behalf of all our staff in expressing what is our enormous pleasure to be presenting the works of so many first-rate photographers from around the world here in Shanghai, and to bring “Hope” to a wide range of photography lovers.”
——Liu Heung Shing
Founding Director, Shanghai Center of Photography
Shahidul Alam, born 1955 Bangladesh, based in Dhaka
Joana Choumali, born 1974 Côte d’Ivoire, based in Abidjan
Margaret Courtney-Clarke, born 1949 Namibia, based in Swakopmund
Rena Effendi, born 1977 Azerbaijan, based in Istanbul
Lucas Foglia, born 1983 USA, based in San Francisco
Janelle Lynch, born 1969 USA, based in New York
Ross McDonnell, born 1979 Ireland, based in New York
Gideon Mendel, born 1959 South Africa, based in London
Ivor Prickett, born 1983 Ireland, based in Europe and the Middle East
Robin Rhode, born 1976 South Africa, based in Berlin
Awoiska van der Molen, born 1972 Netherlands, based in Amsterdam
Alexia Webster, born 1979 South Africa, based in New York
Overview of“Hope”
Shortlist candidates
and their series
Shahidul Alam
As a photographer, writer, and curator, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in Chemistry at London University before focusing on Photography. Returning to his hometown Dhaka in 1984, he documented the social changes in Bangladesh at the time. “Still She Smiles” depicts a woman named Hazera Beagum who has taken her life savings to set up an orphanage for abandoned children, providing hope for children who would otherwise have little to hope for.
Joana Choumali
Joana Choumali is visual artist and photographer based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. n her work “Ça va aller”, Choumali embroiders directly onto her images, completing the act of creating the photograph image with a slow, meditative gesture. This transforms the normally reproducible photograph into a unique object, strikingly enriched by her choice of textiles and sense of color.
Margaret Courtney-Clarke
After studying art and photography in South Africa, Margaret Courtney-Clarke spent the next four decades working as a photographer in Italy, the USA and across Africa.The body of work “Cry Sadness into the Coming Rain” documents Courtney-Clarke’s return to Namibia to claim citizenship having been declared persona non grata in South Africa and, thereby, renouncing her citizenship In 1979.
Rena Effendi
Rena Effendi’s work has an especial focus on change in traditional daily life in specific regions of the world, following the impact of modernization. A fine example is the series “Transylvania: Built on Grass” which looks at family communities in rural Maramures, Romania. These represent the rich, colorful traditions of Transylvanian ways of living and farming the land. It is here that Effendi captured these images of a bucolic but inevitably eroding way of life.
Lucas Foglia
Lucas Foglia grew up on a farm in New York, and currently lives in San Francisco. “Human Nature” is a series of photographic stories about “how we care for nature in the context of climate change.”
Janelle Lynch
Janelle Lynch is an American large-format photographer. “Another Way of Looking at Love” explores nature as a metaphor for the personal, societal and environmental consequences of disconnection, and our inherent yearning for connection. The photographs suggest the interconnectedness of all life forms, and of human relationships to each other, and to the natural and the spiritual worlds.
Ross Mc Donnell
Ross Mc Donnell is a filmmaker and photographer from Dublin, Ireland. “Limbs” contains photographs of a collection of false limbs that Mc Donnell discovered at Jalalabad Orthopedic Hospital – the patients having been provided with more comfortable medical replacements.
Gideon Mendel
Gideon Mendel studied Psychology and African History at the University of Cape Town. He began photographing in the 1980s, during the final years of apartheid. “Damage: A Testament of Faded Memory” depicts the struggle against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. With the photographic negatives impacted by water, time and mould, the series is a reflection on communal memory, hope and structurally imposed racism, a catastrophe for all concerned.
Ivor Prickett
Most recently the work of Ivor Prickett has focused on plights in Iraq and Syria. “End of the Caliphate” is a reminder of the power of people to endure and survive no matter what. This selection of images is not an all-encompassing view of war, but rather a beacon of strength in the midst of terrible hardship. They can give us hope despite the challenges we face as a global community.
Robin Rhode
Robin Rhode’s work explores urban youth culture, socio-economic inequality, and outgrowths of post-Colonialism. They are often collaborative in nature and, like The Principle of Hope series, bring together young South Africans in the hope that they can experience some form of freedom together in the creative process.
Awoiska van der Molen
Awoiska van der Molen is a Dutch artist working with the medium of photography. Her black-and-white photographs of mountains, forests or bodies of waters thus become abstract representations of anonymous landscapes, the result of her urge to return to our origin.
Alexia Webster
Alexia Webster is a photographer and visual artist whose work explores intimacy, family and identity across the African continent and beyond. First created in March 2011, the Street Studios Project is a communal family photo album that began with the set-up of free outdoor photographic studios on more than 20 street corners and public spaces around the world.
About Prix Pictet
Prix Pictet was founded by the Pictet Group in 2008. Today the award is recognised as the world’s leading prize for photography. On an approximately 18-month cycle, each theme aims to provoke discussion and debate on issues of sustainability.
Thanks
We would like to thank our partner in this exhibition Prix Pictet. We also thank PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai for their liaison and support.
Sponsors
Special thanks to our long-term partners VANKE and Dior for their generous support.