Kander triumphs in Prix Pictet
© Nadav Kander
Nadav Kander has won this year's Prix Pictet photography prize for environmental sustainability, receiving a £60,000 cheque from former Secretary General of the United Nations, KofiAnnan.
Kander's win was announced at an exclusive ceremony in Paris last week. The London-based photographer was nominated for his Yangtze, the Long River Series, 2006-07 project.
It documents the rapidly changing landscape and communities of China's longest river, from its mouth to its source. 'I was trying to photograph how I felt, which was somewhat lonely and uneasy,' said Kander last year in BJP.
The Israel-born photographer made five trips to China for the series, which featured in BJP last year. 'The river of legendary beauty has been devastated by industrial and agricultural pollution, and irrevocably changed by the massive Three Gorges Dam project, which involved the forced displacement of some three million people,' BJP wrote at the time (23 July 2008).
Kander received his award from the hands of the former UN General Secretary. 'Only weeks separate us from the decisive negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen,' said Annan. 'We are confronted with the vital need to prepare the political momentum necessary for a fair and effective post-Kyoto agreement. The images in front of us remind us of the fragility of our planet and the damage we have already done. When we see these photographs we cannot close our eyes and remain indifferent. Through our actions and voices, we must keep building the pressure to secure urgent action at Copenhagen and beyond.'
It's a second major award win in less than a week for Kander. On 19 October he won the International Photographer of the Year prize at the Lucie Awards for his editorial work portraying members of President Barack Obama's administration-elect, in what was dubbed the editorial commission of the year by The New York Times Magazine (BJP, 13 May).
The 11 other photographers selected for the Prix Pictet were Chris Steele-Perkins, Edgar Martins, Darren Almond, Christopher Anderson, Sammy Baloji, Edward Burtynsky, Andreas Gursky, Naoya Hatakeyama, Ed Kashi, Abbas Kowsari, and Yao Lu.
Kashi won a commission with the UK-based charity and Malagasy-registered NGO Azafady. He will be visiting Madagascar in order to produce 'a series of photographs that will highlight many of the issues that Azafady are focusing on in this unique and endangered environment'.
To complement the touring exhibition, teNeues will be publishing Earth, featuring the work of the 12 shorlisted photographers as well as from other photographers who entered the competition.
For more information, visit prixpictet.co.uk.
Frozen River, Qinghai (c) Nadav Kander, courtesy of Flowers Gallery/Prix Pictet, 2009.
