Carolyn Drake wins $10,000 Anamorphosis Prize

The book was designed by Dutch photobook specialist SYB, and self-published in an edition of 950, plus 50 special editions. Drake won $10,000 by scooping the first place in The Anamorphosis Prize, which is devoted to self-published books. Wild Pigeon and the 19 other shortlisted books will now also be added to the MoMA library.
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“A lot of the books we appreciate and collect are the self-published ones,” says photographer Anouk Kruithof, who set up the prize along with John A Phelan, a US-based photobook collector. “We wanted to help stimulate that. Usually these guys wouldn’t get their books into the MOMA library [the New York museum is accepting them as part of the prize], so to do that helps bring attention to everyone. It is not just about the winner.”
Kruithof, who is herself a prolific bookmaker, judged the prize, along with Phelan and with curator and critic Charlotte Cotton. They plan to run the award for two more years, hopefully with the same jury. “After that it will either stop or not, we’ll see how it feels,” says Kruithof.
“We felt Wild Pigeon is super-relevant and political. It’s an enormous project Carolyn has worked on for years over very long periods,” she continues. “I really liked her engagement with the community – she wasn’t just picking out a group as a subject matter and observing them, she went to them with her photographs. It’s a very refreshing approach to documentary and socially engaged photography. The way the book was designed is interesting too – it’s designed and printed and made as an interesting object, but it also suits the subject. In my opinion a book is good when reason and content and design and object all enforce each other; this book is a very magical mix of that.”
The other books shortlisted for the 2015 Anamorphosis Prize can be found on the competition website. anamorphosisprize.com