Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2027 Shortlist Announced: War, Bodies and Digital Labour

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2027 shortlist names four artists: Iranian-born, Australia-based Hoda Afshar, Canadian New York-based Lotus L. Kang, Kyiv-based Sasha Kurmaz and Italian Salvatore Vitale. Afshar is recognised for her exhibition Performing the Invisible, shown at the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac in Paris in 2025–26, whose central project The Fold (2019–25) re-examines how veiled bodies have been represented in a colonial photographic archive held by the French museum. Kang's commission The face of desire is loss, presented at the Bvlgari Pavilion during this year's Venice Biennale, combines sculpture, film and suspended lengths of unfixed photographic material that change physically with exposure to light and humidity. Kurmaz produced Red Horse (2025), published by Éditions Images Vevey — an 800-page photobook assembling photographs, notes, drawings and found materials to document life in Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion. Vitale's exhibition Sabotage, shown at Photo Elysée in Lausanne, connects precarious online labour — sourced via Upwork from workers in South Africa — with the mining of materials that underpin digital life. The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced on 29 April 2027, with an exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery, London, running from 10 March to 6 June 2027.