Five Rencontres d'Arles Awards Announced

The Recontres d'Arles, the photography festival held each year in the south of France, closed Saturday July 9 with the awarding of five prizes. The awards are now in their fourth year, and for the first time the winners were selected by a jury of photo professionals attending the event.

The Arles Book Award, selected from 60 short listed titles, was given to Swiss-born photographer Jules Spinatsch for his monograph Temporary Discomfort. Spinatsch documented four cities under emergency lock-downs during global economic summits from 2001 to 2003. The 120 page hardcover title, containing 80 photographs, was published in March 2005 by Lars Muller Publishers in Germany

The Outreach Award, which honors work that creates dialogue in the interests of humanity, was given to Simon Norfolk of Great Britain for his vast Et In Arcadia Ego project on landscapes transformed by military conflict.

The Project Assistance Grant was awarded to Anna Malagrida of Spain for her photographic work focused on privacy and the individual. Malagrida's work will be exhibited at the Arles Festival in 2006.

The No Limit Award, which is given to work that extends the boundaries of photography, went to Mathieu Bernard-Reymond from France. The photographer submitted two series for consideration. "Intervals" (2000-2005) layers multiple photographs and uses cloning to create images of figures seeing themselves mirrored by passers-by. TV (2004-2005) is a series of night scenes in which televised images appear in surprising places, as in a window of a skyscraper.

The Discovery Award went to Miroslav Tichy, an elderly photographer from the Czech Republic. From the 1950's-80's Tichy used handmade cameras to photograph women caught unaware in public. Known only to a small group of insiders until very recently, Tichy's photographs are currently the subject of a major traveling exhibition in European and American museums. The artist, who has never left his native land, was not present to receive his award.

The last night of the festival also featured a moving tribute to the late Henri Cartier Bresson, including a surprise performance by Ravi Shankar's daughter, Anoushka. The tribute was introduced by Bresson's widow, Martine Frank, who also announced the winner of the bi-annual Henri Cartier Bresson International Award, this year given to photographer Fazal Sheikh. This cash prize of 30,000 euros will fund two documentary projects Sheikh is working on about dispossessed women in India.