We are delighted to celebrate the winners of the 2024 V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography. Back for its second year, the Prize was established to identify, support, and champion women artists. It is an important part of the wider V&A Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project.
Produced in partnership with Peckham 24, south London’s innovative photography festival, the prize amplifies the voices of women, celebrates diversity and promotes equality in the arts. It has been made possible by the generous support of Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and The Parasol Foundation Trust. The Foundation actively supports women to achieve their potential in science, health, heritage and the arts.
The Prize attracted over 1,400 submissions from both established and emerging international artists, representing an exciting cross-section of approaches to contemporary photography. Applications demonstrated an innovative response to this year’s theme, ‘Histories’, inviting artists to consider the relationship between history and photography, explore the use of historical techniques and archives, and create reimagined or speculative futures.
The four artists were chosen by the V&A’s external Prize selection committee, comprising Bruno Ceschel, founder and director of Self Publish, Be Happy (SPBH), Dr Zoé Whitley, Director of Chisenhale Gallery, London and Deborah Willis, University Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
Of the winning photographers, the selection committee said: ‘These four artists brilliantly demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the theme ‘Histories’, capturing the concept with diverse and sophisticated visual approaches. Drawing on performative self-portraiture and studio techniques, each artist interrogates personal and social narratives, including the history of photography itself. Through their work, they offer compelling insights into the complexities of the past and its enduring influence on the present.’
Each artist will receive a bursary of £2,000 and exhibit their work at the Copeland Gallery, London, as part of the Peckham 24 festival programme. The exhibition runs from 17 – 26 May 2024.
Aisha Olamide Seriki is a Nigerian, London-based multimedia artist pursuing an MFA in Arts and Humanities at the Royal College of Art. Grounded by the principles of Ìṣẹ̀ṣe (Yorùbá Spiritual Tradition), her work uses photo-manipulation techniques to explore the relationships between photography and the self. Influenced by the concept of Orí (a Yorùbá reference to one’s spiritual destiny) Seriki’s series ‘Orí Inú’ investigates the history of photographic ‘keepsakes’, drawing on the metaphor of the calabash and the comb as cultural symbols of African diasporan histories, empowerment, ritual and self-care.
Nancy Floyd is an American artist raised in Texas and based in Oregon. Weathering Time is an ongoing series of environmental self-portraits that began in 1982 when Floyd was just 25 years old. 40 years later, this ‘visual calendar’ now comprises 2500 photographs that reflect the artist’s personal experience of aging while also reflecting on the cultural, technological and physical changes that have occurred over the past 40 years.
Silvia Rosi works with photography, text and moving image to explore ideas of memory, migration and diaspora. Born in Italy and living and working between the UK and Togo, Rosi’s practice is inspired by West African studio photography and the artist’s Togolese heritage. Her series Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense combines photography and video to explore the artist’s connection to Mina, a Togolese language regulated by colonial rule.
Responding to historical textiles, Los Angeles-based artist Mia Weiner creates hand woven tapestries that explore identity, gender and the psychology of human relationships. In Sirens, Weiner interrogates how the human figure has been represented in art history and in particular how female subjects have often been depicted as objects. Working with her own body along with other female, non-binary, and intersex models, Weiner explores how figurative representation can hold power and agency.
