Catapulted into the spotlight in 2007 when he won the Ian Parry Scholarship, BJP’s Endframe Award, run jointly with Nikon, and the Godfrey Argent Award, Ivor Prickett opted to get out of the limelight and concentrate on new work. He’s now based in Beirut, from where he contributes to magazines such as The Sunday Times, The Saturday Telegraph, The Guardian and Fader, as well as working on long-term projects.

One of those projects, Gali: Abkhazia’s frontier with Georgia, is now about halfway through. A portrait of a region, it depicts both the landscape and the 40,000 or so Mingrelian Georgians who have returned home since Abkhazia won independence in 1993. Their situation is far from stable. Living in a remote, agricultural area, many of them depend on being able to cross the border to buy and sell produce, collect pensions and see family members in Georgia. But since the conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008, the Russian army has taken control of the frontier, in an area in which territorial disputes are far from over.

“I have been following the situation in Abkhazia for quite a while as it was always somewhere that fascinated me,” says Prickett. “I was drawn to it because I’m interested in people and communities who have been forgotten and neglected in the aftermath of war, a theme I have explored in previous work and one that I will continue to build on for the foreseeable future [previous projects have shown displaced Serbs in Croatia and Internally Displaced Persons camps in Kosovo].

“Also it seemed to me to be quite an important story in terms of Abkhazia and Georgia’s current relationship, yet I could find very little in the way of photographs or documentaries about it. I am trying to talk about the difficulties people are enduring, while also looking for aspects that reflect how people are somehow managing to cope and remain strong. I want to convey all of this by making beautiful images that are more suggestive and evocative than glaringly obvious or sensational, this is the challenge.”

Prickett is working with a local fixer and translator and staying with families in the area, and hopes to complete the work in the next six months. Keen to show the passage of time in his long-term project, he wants to add some winter images.

“I can’t be specific really because you have to go with a very open mind,” he says. “But I need some pictures of snow, that much is clear.” BJP

www.ivorprickett.co.uk