Susan Meiselas wins the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2019

AMERICAN photographer Susan Meiselas, known for projects including Carnival Girls and Pandora’s Box, has won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2019. Meiselas won the prize for her work Mediations, capturing the displacement of Kurdistan refugees during the Gulf War, a project which she has built on for 30 years.

Susan Meiselas, Taymour Abdullah, 15, the only survivor of village execution, shows his bullet wound, Arbil, Northern Iraq, December, 1991

Destroyed village along the Hamilton Road, Northern Iraq, 1991

Known for her documentary photography, Mediations shines a light onto an overshadowed issue, capturing the transition of Kurdistan life following the Gulf War. The jury for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize included artist and writer Sunil Gupta, Director of Le Bal, Paris  Felix Hoffmann, Chief Curator at C/O Berlin Anne-Marie Beckmann, and director of Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Frankfurt Brett Rogers. On the 16th May, Meiselas was announced the winner at an award ceremony held in The Photographer’s Gallery, receiving £30,000 in prize money.

Photographs of 20-year-old Kamaran Abdullah Saber are held by his family at Saiwan Hill cemetery.
He was killed in July 1991 during a student demonstration against
Saddam Hussein, Kurdistan, Northern Iraq, 1991

 

by Emma Hart