Laura El-Tantawy, Alnis Stakle and Alix Marie on the longlist for the 2017 Anamorphosis Prize

Launched in 2015 by the artist Anouk Kruithof with the collector John A. Phelan, The Anamorphosis Prize picks out exceptional self-published and artists’ books that use photography. The longlist includes 20 books each year, of which three receive a special jury mention, and one winner takes all of the $10,000 prize. All submitted books will be donated to Franklin Furnace, which hosted the judging, and the 20 books on the longlist will be included in the MoMA library; The Rubber Factory in New York also hosted the longlisted books and a party to celebrate them on 30 November.
The winner for the 2017 prize will be announced on 01 January 2018; the winner for the 2016 prize was Moises Saman with Discordia, and the winner for the 2015 prize was Carolyn Drake with Wild Pigeon. This year the judges were Anouk Kruithof, John A Phelan, and the Mexican curator Amanda de la Garza Mata, and they picked out the following:
Sea I become by degrees by Natalia Baluta; Beyond Here Is Nothing by Laura El-Tantawy; The Sentinel Script by Georg Zinsler; Adverse Reaction – Volume 1 by Miska Draskoczy; Lost Takes by Tobias Bijl; Good Luck with the Future by Rita Puig-Serra Costa & Dani Pujalte; Hab Acht by Andreas Frei; Where does the white go by Piergiorgio Casotti; Psyche by Pablo Cabado; MDAM by Trine Stephensen, Mia Dudek and Alix Marie; War Primer 3 by Emirhan Akin; Smokejumpers by Cole Barash; Los Gestos Muertos by María Isabel Arango; Hiroshima Graph – Rabbits abandon their children by Yoshikatsu Fujii; Melancholic Road by Alnis Stakle; eBay them all! by Alexander Chernavskiy; The Shibayamas by Giancarlo Shibayama; Soy todo ojos by Jose Camara; ACIDATE;;;;; (take that) by Liza Dieckwisch, Romina Dumler, Klara Kayser, Julia Gruner; Propaganda by Frederike Helwig.
Kruithof started the annual prize as a three-year project; in future it may run as a biennial. For more information and to see flick-throughs of the shortlisted books, visit The Anamorphosis Prize website.
www.anamorphosisprize.com https://www.rubber-factory.info https://www.franklinfurnace.org https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/research-resources/library/index

Recording the books for The Anamorphosis Prize 2017, image © Anouk Kruithof
Judging books for The Anamorphosis Prize 2017, image © Anouk Kruithof
Judging books for The Anamorphosis Prize 2017, image © Anouk Kruithof
Presenting the longlisted books for The Anamorphosis Prize 2017, image © Anouk Kruithof (shown centre holding up a glass)
Diane Smyth

Diane Smyth is the editor of BJP, returning for a second stint on staff in 2023 - after 15 years on the team until 2019. As a freelancer, she has written for The Guardian, FT Weekend Magazine, Creative Review, Aperture, FOAM, Aesthetica and Apollo. She has also curated exhibitions for institutions such as The Photographers Gallery and Lianzhou Foto Festival. You can follow her on instagram @dismy