Australian Exclusive

Following the inaugural run in 2019, the Ballarat International Foto Biennale presents the second iteration of The Fineman New Photography Award. This award places the focus on photographic artists working throughout the Asia-Pacific region, seeking to showcase work that is beginning to receive critical attention. This award allows photographers and photo media artists to submit a series of works responding to the Biennale premise Past. Tense. Now.

Six finalists were chosen by an international jury of leading curators and gallery directors, provided with a unique exhibition opportunity. Exhibiting finalists are Pierfrancesco Celada [HKG], Michelle Chan [HKG] Aakriti Chandervanshi [IND], Liss Fenwick [AUS], JinQin Luo [CHN] and Moe Suzuki [JPN].

This award is proudly supported by Alane Fineman.

Judges
Fayen Ke-Xiao d’Evie
Pippa Dickson
Gwen Lee
Eriko Noguchi
Miho Odaka
Jim Ramer
Shubigi Rao
Bala Starr
Alexander Supartono
Fiona Sweet

Award Winners

Judges awarded The Fineman New Photography Award 2021 first prize of $10,000 AUD to Liss Fenwick for her series Back Out. Of the winning series, judges said, “Her work expands, with great vividness, the value-judgements of terrain, land use and function. Fenwick’s series Back Out rewrites the conventions of natural beauty and barrenness, with a framing that is empathetic as it is uncompromising… Strongly charged emotive images that look at the immediate surroundings beyond cliché images. A starkly beautiful, ineffable series which presents new readings on Australia rural area which is hardly known by the wider audience outside of the country… Fenwick’s images carry an uncanny sense that arises out of the stress points of the past and are manifest in beauty found in a hostile and bleak landscape.”

Honourable mention was given to JinQian Luo, The Prosperity of the Sixdomestic Animals, 2020

The People’s Choice award winner is Aakriti Chandervanshi, After Eden, 2020, as voted by the public throughout the exhibition period.