Installation of Feelings Wheel, 2024 – 2025 © Rene Matić at The Photographers’ Gallery. Installation image © Kate Elliot
Against a strong shortlist also featuring Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka and Amak Mahmoodian, Rene Matić has won the £30,000 prize
Matić was shortlisted for the annual award for their exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, which was shown at CCA Berlin, Germany from 08 November 2024 – 15 February 2025. Featuring intimate images of friends and chosen family framed in glass, it also included film, sound, and objects, such as a collection of black dolls found in second-hand shops. “I am interested in the line between blessing and burden,” they told BJP of the show. “How to bring things to light and dark all at once.”
Born in Peterborough in 1997, Matić makes diaristic, snapshot-like images, combining them with film and sculpture to explore what they describe as “rude(ness)” – an evidencing and honouring of the in-between. Matić was nominated for the 2025 Turner Prize, and picked out for the Deutsche Börse by a jury featuring Anne-Marie Beckmann (Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation), Newsha Tavakolian, Elisa Medde (Foto Colectania Foundation), and Dr Mark Sealy (Autograph Gallery). The jury was chaired by Shoair Mavlian (The Photographers’ Gallery).
“I am interested in the line between blessing and burden. How to bring things to light and dark all at once.” Rene Matić
“Rene’s deeply-personal work is rooted in community and belonging – and their power both to heal and bring people together,” said Mavlian. “Rene’s raw and honest photographs bring a story of Britain today to audiences outside the UK.”
“Congratulations to Rene,” added Beckmann. “Their photography captures everyday life with tenderness and intimacy. The importance of chosen family and community shines through. Rene’s photographs celebrate the togetherness of people – whether they are laughing, kissing or partying.”
Atwood, Gęsicka and Mahmoodian each receive £5000 for their work. Born in 1947 in New York, Atwood was nominated for her publication Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a revised, bilingual reprint of two works originally published in 2000 and updated by Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille in 2024. It features work made over a decade in women’s prisons across nine countries in the 1990s, recording the lived realities of female inmates – including a lack of gynaecological and mental healthcare, and limited access to hygienic facilities.
Gęsicka, born in Włocławek, Poland in 1984, was nominated for the book Encyclopaedia, published by BLOW UP PRESS in November 2024. Depicting fake entries originally inserted into reference books in order to spot copyright violations, Gęsicka uses manipulated stock photographs and AI-generated images to ask what is real, and what we are prepared to believe.
Mahmoodian, born in 1980 in Shiraz, Iran, was nominated for the exhibition One Hundred and Twenty Minutes, which was shown at the Bristol Photo Festival from 16 October – 17 November 2024. Installed in a former domestic space, this show included photography, poetry, text, and drawing to explore the emotional and psychological imprints of exile. Working closely with 16 collaborators from 14 countries, Mahmoodian explored recurring dreams, memory and identity.
“Dreams are personal,” Mahmoodian told BJP in a feature published in the December 2024 issue. “When we are awake, we share moments together, but as soon as we close our eyes and we are asleep, we create a world which is absolutely private. You can let people come in or leave, and I love this life without borders. It is a response to the physical border which has been created by political leaders. We cannot change the circumstance, but we can change the perspective.”
Founded in 1996 by The Photographers’ Gallery, this award celebrates artists for an exhibition or book deemed to have made a significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months. It was originally known as the Citigroup Photography Prize, before Deutsche Börse Group took over in 2005; past winners include Lebohang Kganye, Mohamed Bourouissa, Susan Meiselas, and Juergen Teller. The work by all four shortlisted artists this year will go on show at Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt from 03 September 2026 to 24 January 2027.
The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2026 is on show at The Photographers’ Gallery until 07 June 2026. thephotographersgallery.org.uk