Joana Choumali, Wins Europe’s Top Photography Award (Prix Pictet).
Joana Choumali, a photographer from Ivory Coast, has become the first African artist to win the Prix Pictet.
The theme of the eighthPrix Pictet,a global award for photography and sustainability, was Hope. The jury, which includedlast year's winner, Richard Mosse,praised Choumali's "brilliantly original meditation on the ability of the human spirit to wrest hope and resilience from even the most traumatic events".
Choumali won for her series Ca va aller(It will be OK), which comprised photographs that were taken three weeks after the March 2016terrorist attacks at the Grand Bassam beach.She embroidered ornate patterns on the images, describing the painstaking process as "a way to address the way Ivorian people deal with trauma and mental health".
Joana Choumali,Untitled(2019) from the series "Ca va aller? (2016-19). Joana Choumali, Prix Pictet.
Choumali's win is a break with tradition in several ways: she is African, female and her work is marked by thoughtful understatement and a craft-based approach that is in direct contrast.
Source: theguardian.com