Meet the winners of Carte Blanche 2022: Sumi Anjuman, Jérémie Danon, Alessandra Leta, and Philip Tsetinis

The winners of the student open call will exhibit their work at Paris Gare du Lyon train station, as well as in a dedicated space at Paris Photo

Now in its sixth year, Carte Blanche is an open call that seeks to uplift emerging talent, forging connections between students and the often impenetrable world of art photography. Initiated by Paris Photo in partnership with Picto Foundation and SNCF Gares & Connexions, the award is open to all MA and BA students throughout Europe.

Today, four laureates have been announced as the winners of this year’s call-out. Sumi Anjuman, Jérémie Danon, Alessandra Leta, and Philip Tsetinis will exhibit their work at Paris Gare du Lyon train station, as well as in a dedicated space at Paris Photo, throughout November. 

Here, we introduce each of the winners. 

Sumi Anjuman
Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

Raised in northern Bangladesh, Sumi Anjuman’s work is charged by her experiences of being a woman in an Islamic orthodox society. The discrimination experienced by Anjuman’s LGBTQ friends motivated her first project, Somewhere Else Than Here. “I felt that I should speak out for them,” says Anjuman, in an interview with BJP from 2020. Despite its political motivations, Anjuman’s work is poetic and abstract, rather than straightforward documentary. Her collaborative process is rooted in ideas of inclusivity, and her images invite a curiosity to find out more. 

@sumi_anjuman

Jérémie Danon
Academy of Fine Arts, Paris

Jérémie Danon’s practice exists between fiction and documentary. He is interested in the relationships between bodies and spaces, the imaginary, the notions of territory, and intimacy. For his project Plein air Plein air, Danon photographed individuals who have left prison and are now in rehabilitation. The participants are pictured against green screens and placed in otherworldly environments. They now find themselves in a different kind of freedom than the one they knew before their detention,” writes Danon, in his artist’s statement. “[The green screen] allows me to present their testimonies while decontextualizing them from reality, through imaginary spaces.”

@jeremiedanon

Alessandra Leta
University of Basel, Switzerland

In The Unmovable Mover Alessandra Leta investigates the power dynamics within the infrastructure of the factory. The project began with the discovery of an image in a Swiss antique shop. It was made in 1972, and depicted the desk that belonged to an unidentified director of a local factory. The project combines visual references directly adopted from archeology and museography, as well as reflecting on the image as a document of both truth and fiction. 

@alessandra__leta

Philip Tsetinis
University of Applied Arts, Vienna

Philip Tsetinis’ staged images intend to “captivate the viewer emotionally”. His series Unknown Polyphenism, is composed of 16 staged images that propose a hypothetical insight into how subsequent generations may adapt to new realities. “Polyphenism describes the visually perceptible change of a living being through the adaptation to changed environmental conditions like food, temperature, population,” he explains, in an artist’s statement. 

@philiptset

Find out more about this year’s Carte Blanche winners here.