Wellcome Photography Prize 2021

 

 

 

Wellcome Photography Prize 2021 shortlist announced

 

• 90 shortlisted images from 15 countries
• Categories are Managing Mental Health, Health in a Heating World and Fighting Infections
• Winners to be announced via YouTube Live on 28 July
• Shortlisted photographs available to view in online gallery here

 

 

Wellcome Photography Prize has today, Wednesday 23 June, announced its 2021 shortlist. Now in its third year, the 2021 prize covers three areas of interest which reflect Wellcome’s three worldwide health challenge areas - mental health, global heating and infectious disease.

 

Within the Managing Mental Health categories, we are given insights into the lives of people with mental health issues from London to Iran to South Africa. The images show intimate displays of problems such as addiction, ADHD and depression, and the methods people use to improve their mental health. They also show communities and organisations coming together to help and support those in need. Such as the London-based bird watching club set up for people of colour to reconnect with nature and a father struggling with addiction cutting his son’s hair as an expression of parental care that can be hard to put into words.

 

The Fighting Infections categories showcase those fighting infection and disease across the world, and we gain perspectives on how the Covid-19 outbreak has affected different people and places. The photographs range from images of health workers wearing PPE, people going about their day-to-day activities, and the inside of hospitals, to the effect the pandemic has had on other pre-existing medical and societal issues such as cancer patients, elderly care, and those who have fallen between the cracks of healthcare systems. An image of a staged wedding in Iran reminds us of the strict social distancing measures which prevented such important celebrations during the pandemic, while another photograph of a tram conductor in India, clad head to toe PPE, demonstrates the vulnerability of key workers.

 

The devastating effects of climate change are showcased in the Health in a Heating World categories. The photographs illustrate the significant healthcare problems which are arising from our ever-heating planet including: climate migration, wildfires, the increasing risk of skin cancer for those with albinism, the risk of climate change to coastal communities, and people’s endeavours to find drinking water.

 

Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome and Wellcome Photography Prize Chair, said:

 

“Again for a third year the standard of entries to the Wellcome Photography Prize has been astonishing, this year’s shortlist truly represents human stories of fragility and resilience through recent times. Global heating, mental health and infectious disease are ambitious health topics that we just can’t solve alone. Only by championing the stories of those most affected do we have a chance of understanding the harmful effects and developing new ways of protecting people’s health.”

 

An expert panel of judges from across photography, medicine and science selected the shortlist from more than 10,000 photographs submitted from 110 countries. The six categories for this year’s prize are:

 

 

Managing Mental Health (single image)	New ways to think about mental health problems and how to solve them
Managing Mental Health (series)
	The places already affected by global heating, and the people finding innovative ways to protect each other
Health in a Heating World (single image)
Heath in a Heating World (series)
Fighting Infections (single image)	The realities of infectious diseases in a pandemic world, from personal experiences to political actions
Fighting Infections (series)

Wellcome Photography Prize 2021 Shortlist

 

Photographer	Nationality	Entry title	Location
MANAGING MENTAL HEALTH (single image)
Thomas Duffield	British	Dad Cuts My Hair	UK
Jameisha Prescod	British	Untangling	UK
Kate Rosewell	British	Disconnected	UK
Oded Wagenstein	Israeli	Transparent Curtains: Living in the Closet at Old Age	Israel
Dulcie Wagstaff	British	Head in hole	UK
MANAGING MENTAL HEALTH (series)
Agnese Carlotta Morganti	Italian	Morpheus	Italy
Morteza Niknahad	Iranian	The Big Fish	Iran
Nora Nord	Norwegian	ADHD Portraits	UK
Brent Stirton	South African	Friendship Benches Zimbabwe	Zimbabwe
Rebekah Williams	British	Birds Of A Feather Flock Together	UK
HEALTH IN A HEATING WORLD (single)
Sharwar Apo	Bangladeshi	Tears of Drought	Bangladesh
Krisztián Bócsi	Hungarian	Eliminating Fossil Fuels in Germany	Germany
Zakir Hossain Chowdhury	Bangladeshi	Climate Cost	Bangladesh
Sujan Sarkar	Indian	Water Scarcity	India
Michael Snyder	American	The Family at the End of the World	Norway
HEALTH IN A HEATING WORLD (series)
Ayomitunde Adeleke	Nigerian	Sun, Not Salt	Nigeria
Lys Arango	Spanish	Until the Corn Grows Back	Guatemala
Edoardo Delille and Giulia Permartiri	Italian	Diving Maldives	Maldives
Gideon Mendel and Jonathan Pierredon	South African	Burnt Memory: Archaeology from a Climate Emergency	The objects are from the homes of people photographed in northern California. The photographs were taken in a studio in France.
Hashem Shakeri	Iranian	An Elegy for the Death of Hamun	Iran
FIGHTING INFECTIONS (single)
Richard Boll	British	Louise, March 2020	UK
Max Cavallari	Italian	The Hug Room	Italy
Sudipto Das	Indian	Fighting Pandemic	India
Hadi Dehghanpou	Iranian	Corona Bride	Iran
Aly Song	Chinese	The Time of Coronavirus	China
FIGHTING INFECTIONS (series)
Hugh Kinsella Cunningham	British	The Next Pandemic	Democratic Republic of Congo
Gideon Mendel (assisted by Maria Quigley)	South African	2 Metres - Masked Portraits on Ridley Road	UK
Yoppy Pieter	Indonesian	Trans Woman: Between Colour and Voice	Indonesia
Anastasia Taylor-Lind	British	Conflict and Covid-19 in Nagorno-Karabakh	Nagorno-Karabakh
Ingmar Björn Nolting	German	Measure and Middle	Germany

 

The shortlist was selected by Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome, and a panel of eight judges:

• Dr Dixon Chibanda, Associate Professor at the University of Zimbabwe Clinical Research Centre, and Director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative
• Johannah Churchill RGN, Photographer and Primary Care Nurse
• Joycelyn Longdon, MRes and PhD at the University of Cambridge and Founder of ClimateInColour
• Dr John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
• Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of African Artists' Foundation and LagosPhoto Festival
• Dr Charles Ogilvie, Strategy Director of COP26 and multimedia artist
• Brett Rogers OBE, Director of The Photographers' Gallery
• Dr Kateřina Šrahůlková, Psychologist and Mental Health Specialist with Médecins sans Frontières

 

Winner Announcement

 

The 6 category winners plus 1 single image and 1 series winner will be announced during an online event commencing at 5pm BST on Wednesday 28 July. The event will include contributions from the winning photographers.

 

Wellcome Photography Prize 2021 will award the following prizes:

 

Category winners: 1 photographer from each category (6 in total) will receive £1,000

Single image winner: 1 photographer will receive £10,000
Series winner: 1 photographer will receive £10,000

 

 

-ENDS-

 

Photographers, judges and Wellcome spokespeople are available for interview.
For more information, please contact the Four Communications team via:

wellcome@fourcommunications.com

Zoe Poulton | 07891 423440

For more information on the prize visit:
wellcome.org/photoprize

Follow Wellcome on:
Twitter: @wellcometrust | Instagram: @wellcomephotoprize | Facebook: @wellcometrust and via the prize hashtag: #WPP21

 

 

Notes to Editors

 

Available Assets

 

The following assets are available to download for media use here
Please use photographer credits in any image use.

 

• Shortlisted photographs and captions
• Photographer and judge images
• Photographer and judge biographies

 

About Wellcome

 

Wellcome Photography Prize is delivered by Wellcome, an independent charitable foundation supporting science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, global heating and infectious diseases.

 

www.wellcome.org