Ana María Arévalo Gosen wins Leica photography award for collection on women’s prisons
Venezuelan photographer Ana María Arévalo Gosen has received the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) for her collection Días Eternos, which explores women’s prisons in Venezuela and El Salvador
Ana María Arévalo Gosen has been unveiled as the winner of the 2021 Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA), whilst German photographer Emile Ducke is the winner in the Newcomer classification.
Venezuelan photographer Gosen’s series Días Eternos, her 2017 review of women’s prisons in Venezuela and El Salvador, claimed the prize. She used a Leica Q to seize the women in their residing conditions, generating visual tales that open up a dialogue into the implications of imprisonment for the two the topics and Latin American modern society as a entire. ‘In the portraits of the females in jail, I’m anxious about the circumstances of their imprisonment, in which human rights feel to be overlooked. I really do not feel I can alter these women’s lives, but at the very least by my work I can display that they exist,’ Gosen states.
© Ana María Arévalo Gosen, Días Eternos
The jury – assistant editor, pictures, at The New York Periods, Sandra M Stevenson photographer Ralph Gibson photographer and head of advocacy and education and learning for Adobe’s Articles Authenticity Initiative, Santiago Lyon director, schooling and general public affairs at the Royal Photographic Modern society, Dr Michael Pritchard and art director and main consultant for Leica Galleries Global, Karin Rehn-Kaufmann – chose Gosen as the recipient of the €40,000 prize funds and Leica digital camera machines.
In the Newcomer category for up-and-coming photographers less than 30, Emile Ducke’s Kolyma – Along the Highway of Bones series scooped the prize. The collection traces the route of Stalin-era gulag inmates, alongside a distant freeway in the Siberian area of Kolyma.
‘Leica continues its determination to supporting photographers all over the earth, portraying the romantic relationship among gentleman and the ecosystem,’ says Leica UK’s managing director Jason Heward. ‘This year’s LOBA, its 41st edition, proves testomony to this. With all-around 100 best-notch intercontinental pictures industry experts submitting their proposals, the quality of the operate presented has been fantastic.
‘The humanity shown in the pictures from this year’s winner, Ana María Arévalo Gosen, is both striking and lovely. Her Días Eternos collection files the hard dwelling disorders of girls in prisons in Venezuela and El Salvador and her believed-provoking photos reveal the human rights aberration of these women’s imprisonment. A impressive piece of function with enormous visual effect and social voice.’ §
© Ana María Arévalo Gosen, Días Eternos
