BBA Photography Prize 2020

Born in New York City, Alec Von Bargen is a social anthropologist of sorts. He captures aesthetic instances resonating true with their historical, political and social contexts. He uses the most basic equipment possible to create his images, videos, murals and installations. Although his research is meticulous he does not prep, pre-produce, light or arrange for his shoots.

In his own words: “My images are my waking companions, my accomplices... my alibi. My work reveals the conversation I sustain with the world. It is immediate. I do not stage, light or prep. My subjects are the people, the places, the moments that share my journey... those emotions I meet along the way.“

Alec Von Bargen recently exhibited at both the 54th and 56th editions of the Venice Biennale, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the OCT Museum in Shanghai, China and Les Rencontres D’Arles Festival, France, amongst others. His work has won numerous awards including the IPA’s in LA and the PX3’s in Paris. He was a finalist at the Dubai Emerging Artist Award and Aesthetica Magazine, UK, selected him as finalist for their prestigious award in 2019. He was finalist for the Terry O’Neill Award and the Celeste Prize in Berlin, Germany. He recently completed a six month project in China having been selected by François-Henri Pinault and the Swatch Group as guest artist at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai. Von Bargen’s latest awards are the 2017 International Fine Art Photographer Award in Paris, the 2018 IPA’s, the 2018 International Color Photography Awards, the 11th edition of the Pollux Awards and his most recent series is included in the 161st Royal Photographic Society exhibition. Alec is Visual Advisor to the both the Venice Film Festival’s Biennale College Cinema and the Red Sea FilmFestival’s Red Sea Lodge. He spends most of his time between Italy and Mexico, but works all over the world.

Hyper-realism and cinematic are characteristic descriptions of Julia Fullerton-Batten’s images. They are often set in unexpectedly surreal settings with dramatic lighting, communicating simultaneously both tension and mystery.

The exhibited series reflects on the time of isolation during the Covid 19 pandemic. In her own words: „Time stands still for most of us. It is a sensitive time, we all feel vulnerable and anxious. I felt numb but I knew that I couldn’t stand around and do nothing, I decided to document today’s existence as lived now by many people. I chose to capture them in their lockdown isolation, effectively imprisoned behind the windows of their homes looking out onto a different desolate world.“

Since becoming a professional photographer in 2005 she has accomplished 13 major projects. Her first was Teenage Stories (2005), a semi-autobiographical narrative portraying the feelings of anxiety and discomfort experienced by a prepubescent girl as she transitions to womanhood. During the project she retroactively explored and connected with her own experiences. More recently, she has taken on socially conscious issues; among others, blindness, modern-day society’s preoccupation with the ideal figure, women voluntarily engaging in the sex industry, etc. She was a winner of the HSBC Foundation pour la Photographie award. Her images are on the front covers of 'A Guide to Collecting Contemporary Photography' (Thames and Hudson, 2012) and Eyemazing Magazine. Major events in which she has recently participated include Fotografiska, Stockholm; Noorderlicht, International Festival of Photography, Kristiansund, Norway; Dong Gang Photo festival, Korea; Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundacion Caja, Madrid; Pompidou Center, Paris; Shanghai International Photographic Art Exhibition; Hereford Photo Festival; The Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MOCA Shanghai)

Seunggu Kim exhibits works from his series „Better Days“. Korea has been developed rapidly over 40 years, which caused a lot of social ironies. One of the irony is long working hours with very short period of break. During holidays, Koreans try their best to enjoy it, but due to lack of time to travel, they spend time mostly around city. This collective leisure and spatial environments for it reveal the attitude of Koreans living with optimism and a sense of community despite social constraints.

Seunggu Kim lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. He earned his BFA in photography from Sangmyung University, and MFA in visual art from Korea National University of Arts. He thinks photography can show our ‘real world’. He wants to balance the unnatural elements in the rectangle frame and to describe that we are getting used to the social ironies of reality.

Select recent milestones include: Ten by Ten, Houston FotoFest; Grand Prix Winner, Tokyo International Photography Competition; Korean Photographer’s Fellowship of the year, KT&G; The Finalist of 2018 Art Photography, Lens Culture; Supported Artist of 2019 Solo Exhibition, Filter Space; The Korea Society, Aperture Gallery, and The UPI Gallery in New York; Filter Space in Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland; Laney Contemporary Fine Art in Savannah; Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing. His new book, Bam Islet, was published by KT&G Sangsangmadang in 2019.

Karina Bikbulatova. was born in Russia in 1995. She graduated from the University of Culture and Art in Moscow in the field of photography and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

In her own words: “For me, photography is a convenient and universal language. There are things I don't want to talk about, because I find it difficult to find words in Russian, Tatar, English, Italian, and the plastic language comes to the rescue, the language of photography, which I know better than others.“

Her black-and-white series „The two parallel" about two sisters abandoned by their father shows a special reunion. They meet once a year in a small village, - communicate, play, weave braids for each other, but don't know that they are sisters. Gulshat lives in a poor family in a small village. Alina lives in the city, studies at a prestigious school, and is a ballet dancer. Their two lives run parallel and should not have intersected ever, according to the lV postulate of Euclid. And yet it happened, as in the hyperbolic geometry of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobačevskij. In a Russian village two parallel lines meet once a year.

Prizes for her work include: 2019 Lucie Foundation award - Winner Beginning Scholarship, 2019 Fine Art Photography Awards - 1st place in the section People, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards Professional - 3rd Place, 2019 Monovisions Black and White Photography Awards - 2nd Place Series: People, 2019 Prix Levallois - Special Mention, 2019 International prize Piero Chiara - Winner

Gloria Oyarzabal lived in Bamako, Mali for three years (2009-2012) researching the construction of the idea of Africa, processes of colonisation / decolonisation, new tactics of colonialism and the diversity around the different voices of the African Feminisms. Since her years in Mali, her energies have been focused on understanding the Machiavellian and harmful construction of Africa's idea and its imaginary. Oyarzabal became aware of the wide spectrum of voices in African feminisms, the effect of colonisation and imperialism on the concept of "woman" and the way gender issues are handled thereafter. In her exhibited works Oyarzabal discusses the infantilisation of women which was also exported with the colonisation of the mind, as part of a Western patriarchal system based on an enormous mistrust of women's autonomy and rationality, with a paternalistic guardianship.

Gloria Oyarzabal is a Spanish artist photographer with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, she diversifies her professional activity between photography, cinema and teaching. Graduated on Conservation & Restoration of Art and Master’s degree in Creation & Development of Photographic Projects at Blankpaper School of Photography. Her work has been shown at Organ Vida Festival (Zagreb, Croatia), Format (Derby, UK), Fotofestiwal (Lodz, Poland), Athens Photo Festival (Greece), Lagos Photo Festival (Nigeria), PHE PhotoEspaña (Spain), Thessalonika Foto Museum (Greece) among others. In 2017 she was selected for the artistic residency Ranchito Matadero Nigeria-South Africa where she develops her last project about African feminisms in Madrid and Lagos. That same year she wins the Landskrona Dummy Award, which allowed her to publish his first photobook “Picnos Tshombé”. She is also the winner of Photo Israel Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography (Tel Aviv, Israel) 2019, Fotofestiwal Grand Prix (Lodz, Poland) 201 and Encontros da Imagem Discovery Award (Braga Portugal) 2018.