LONDON.- Curated by The Photographers’ Gallery’s Anna Dannemann, the exhibition brings together the four nominated projects from the 2021 shortlisted artists: Poulomi Basu, Alejandro Cartagena, Cao Fei and Zineb Sedira. Highlighting the diverse and innovative nature of their individual practices, the exhibition presents four challenging and wide-ranging projects that together amplify universally resonant and relevant themes of representation, virtuality and the environment.

The exhibition is being presented at the same time as the international photography triennial RAY Fotografieprojekte Frankfurt/RheinMain and is on display at Deutsche Börse’s headquarters in Eschborn/Frankfurt from 5 June—19 September 2021.

2021 also celebrates the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which has been awarded in collaboration with Deutsche Börse Group since 2005, and recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

Taking over the fourth and fifth floors of The Photographers’ Gallery, the exhibition presents four distinct artists’ rooms, inviting visitors to examine urgent, though often overlooked, political, cultural and social upheavals across four vastly different geographic terrains – China, India, Algeria and Mexico. In tackling their chosen themes, they each use an extraordinary range of different media and photographic strategies: cinematic immersion and dystopian fiction in the work of Cao Fei; brutally effective and subversive political narratives in Poulomi Basu’s publication; richly layered and personal storytelling in Alejandro Cartagena’s research of home-ownership in Northern Mexico; the archive, collective and individual memory combining the personal and political within Zineb Sedira’s practice.




The first encounter on the fifth floor is with Zineb Sedira’s Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go presented at the Jeu de Paume retrospective in 2019. The work invites visitors into a recreation of the artist’s living room which presents as an interactive archive, full of intergenerational and cross-cultural echoes through objects, memorabilia and personal items. The project constantly shifts between a multi-layered portrait of the artist and a broader reflection on memory, culture and belonging. Similar to Sedira’s acclaimed video works, the accumulation of cultural artefacts, language and shared narratives intersects with wider geopolitical reverberations in the present.

Occupying the back of the fifth floor is Poulomi Basu’s multi-faceted project Centralia (2020), published by Dewi Lewis Publishing. The project uncovers the violent, largely unreported conflict between a marginalised community of indigenous people fighting under the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA) and the Indian state. Basu uses a variety of image types; from cinematic double exposures of dark landscapes, staged portraits and sourced images, to shocking photographs of violent crime scenes, testimonies and mugshots of fallen, often female, revolutionary-fighters alongside depictions of traditional rural festivities. Engaging with issues of gender, race, and class, Basu advocates against political and social injustices, focusing on the devastating impact of poverty, conflict, environmental deprivation and patriarchy in her home country and worldwide.

On the fourth floor, the first space presents Alejandro Cartagena’s project A small Guide to Homeownership published by The Velvet Cell in 2020. Through his extensive and dynamic photographic practice, Alejandro Cartagena explores urban and social landscapes as well as personal experiences and environmental destruction. A Small Guide to Homeownership documents the homogenous suburban sprawl, and how its promises of a better life, come up against the reality of unchecked developments. Cartagena utilises landscape images, advertisements, texts, portraits, city backdrops and documentary photography to create layered collages that weave a complex, cautionary tale around the home-buying industry in Mexico.

The back space of the fourth floor hosts works by multimedia artist Cao Fei who was nominated for her exhibition Blueprints at Serpentine Gallery, London (4 March—17 May 2020 and 4 August—13 September 2020 after lockdown). Presenting photographs as well as the feature length film Nova (2019) and a related publication the installation explores the digital and immersive worlds of film as a utopian space. Cao Fei has created an extensive body of work over the last two decades that considers the impact of automation, virtual realities and hyper-urbanisation on the human condition, particularly informed by the history, consumerism and social structures in her home country China.

The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced at a special award ceremony held at The Photographers’ Gallery on Thursday 9 September 2021.

A fully illustrated catalogue offering newly commissioned essays on the projects and the artists will be available in TPG’s bookshop and online. An accompanying programme of talks and events will illuminate the exhibition, including presentations from all the shortlisted artists.