Finalists

FELICITY HAMMOND

FELICITY HAMMOND

Felicity Hammond was born in 1988 in Birmingham, UK, and is currently based in London.
Hammond received an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in London in 2014 and a PhD in Contemporary Art Research from Kingston University in 2021. Through her art works and research, she investigates the power of photographic media, shining a light on its material relationship with territories such as the urban terrain and the planetary mine. Hammond’s expanded photographic practice spans installation, collage and photo-sculpture, acknowledging the ongoing entanglement of digital and physical space.

Her first institutional solo exhibition “Remains in Development” took place in 2020-2021 at C/O Berlin and Kunsthal Extra City Antwerp. She has exhibited her work in international group exhibitions at museums and galleries including Fotomuseum Winterthur, VOX Centre de l’image contemporaine Montreal, Higher Pictures New York and Saatchi Gallery London, amongst others. Hammond has worked on a number of high-profile public art works, including a 30 metre site-specific work for Photo 2021 Melbourne, Australia and a large scale installation for Colchester and Ipswich Museum, UK. Her work has received and been nominated for a number of awards, including being the recipient of the Ampersand Photoworks Fellowship (2023) and the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (longlist, 2019). She was awarded the Lumen Art Prize (2018), FOAM Talent (2016), and the British Journal of Photography International Photography Award (single image winner, 2016). Her first book, Property, was published in 2019 by SPBH.

Hammond is currently a Senior Lecturer on the MA Photography programme at Kingston University and has previously taught at University of the Arts London, UK, and ECAL, Switzerland.

GOSETTE LUBONDO

GOSETTE LUBONDO

Her work has been exhibited at several solo and group exhibitions and biennials such as “Formes de la ruine,” Musée des beaux-arts, Lyon, France, 2023; VIII Rencontres photographiques de Guyane, 2023; “Kinshasa (N)tongo,” KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium, 2022; “Imaginary trip,” Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, 2022; “Where Does anything actually Begin?,” Wanås Konst, Sculpture Park, Knislinge, Sweden, 2022; “Memoria: récits d’une autre Histoire,” FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux, France, 2021; “A toi appartient le regard et (...) la liaison infinie entre les choses,” Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, 2020; “Homebound: A Journey in Photography,” Sharjah Art Museum, UAE, 2020; “Congo Stars,” Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany, 2019; VIBiennale de Lubumbashi, DRC, 2019; Addis Foto Fest, Addis-Abeba, Ethiopia, 2018; “Héliotropisme,” collection Si particulière, Arles, France, 2017; Seven Hills Kampala Art Biennale, Uganda, 2016; “Lady by Lady,” Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles x Kin ART studio, Kinshasa, 2014; “Les Lieux,” Academy of Fine Arts, Kinshasa, 2013.

In 2021 Gosette Lubondo was awarded the Prix Maison Ruinart, which each year rewards an emerging artist exhibited at Paris Photo. In 2017, she won the photographic Residence of the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris.

Her work is part of several permanent collections, such as KANAL Foundation, KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Brussels; FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux, France; Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris; MACAAL, Marrakech, Morocco; Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA; Saint Louis Art Museum, MO, USA; Ministère des affaires étrangères, Kinshasa & Belgium.

SILVIA ROSI

SILVIA ROSI

Silvia Rosi, born in Scandiano, Italy, in 1992, is an artist based in Lomè (Togo) and London (United Kingdom). In her practice she uses photography and the moving image to explore the space of memory and self-representation. Her images are informed by West African studio portrait photography.

She received a BA in Photography in 2016 from LCC, University of the Arts London.

In 2020 she was awarded the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards for the series Encounter, which traces her personal story, drawing on her Togolese heritage and the idea of origins, which she narrates through the use of the self-portraiture combined with videos and textual fragments. Her work has been exhibited in international institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2024); Camera – Italian Center for Photography, Turin (2023); MAXXI, Rome (2022); MA*GA, Gallarate (2022); LACMA, Los Angeles (2021); Les Rencontres d’Arles (2021); Autograph ABP, London (2021); the National Portrait Gallery, London (2020).

Her work has been published in “Foam,” the “New Yorker,” and the “British Journal of Photography,” among others. She was selected for international residencies such as Hangar Residency in Lisbon (2023) and Thread Cultural Center and Residency, Sinthian, Senetal (2019).

She has received numerous international awards, including the Gallarate Prize (2022), the Foam Talent (2021), the Royal Photographic Society Vic Odden Award (2021), Agitu Ideo Gudeta Fellowship (2020), the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards (2020) and was a finalist for the MAXXI Bulgari 2022 award.

Her work can be found in the collections of LACMA, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York; MA*GA, Gallarate; Autograph ABP, London; and Collezione Donata Pizzi.

SHEIDA SOLEIMANI

SHEIDA SOLEIMANI

Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) is an Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist based in Providence, Rhode Island. The daughter of political refugees who escaped Iran in the early 1980s, Soleimani makes work that excavates the histories of violence linking Iran, the United States, and the Greater Middle East. In working across form and medium—especially photography, sculpture, collage, and film—she often appropriates source images from popular/digital media and resituates them within defamiliarizing tableaux. The composition depends on the question at hand. For example, how can one do justice to survivor testimony and to the survivors themselves (To Oblivion)? What are the connections between oil, corruption, and human rights abuses among OPEC nations (Medium of Exchange)? How do nations work out reparations deals that often turn the ethics of historical injustice into playing fields for their own economic interests (Reparations Packages)? In contrast to Western news, which rarely covers these problems, Soleimani makes work that persuades spectators to address them directly and effectively.

Soleimani’s work is held in permanent collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; MIT List Visual Art Center, Cambridge, MA (USA); and Kadist Paris. Her work has been recognized internationally in both exhibitions and publications such as “The New York Times,” “Financial Times,” “Art in America,” “Interview,” among many others.

Soleimani is also an assistant professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University and a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator.

KAI WASIKOWSKI

KAI WASIKOWSKI

Kai Wasikowski was born in 1992. He currently lives and works on Gadigal Land / Sydney, Australia. His practice encompasses photography, video and sculpture. He often draws on his familial connection to landscape photography and environmental conservation as a point of departure for his work, with an interest in how colonial optics employs photography to obscure the social and political stratifications of land, resources, possession, and belonging.

Wasikowski received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2023, and his BVA (First Class Honours with University Medal) from the University of Sydney in 2016. His work has received notable awards including the Dr Harold Schenberg Art Fellowship from the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2017); the AusArt Scholarship from the American Australian Association (2020); and the Marten Bequest Scholarship from Creative Australia (2021).

He has exhibited in curated exhibitions including the New South Wales Visual Artist Emerging Fellowship (2018), Artspace, Sydney, Australia; “Oceans From Here,” Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (2018); “‘Til It’s Gone,” Museum of Old and New Art’s MONA FOMA Festival, Launceston, Australia, 2021; the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award (2022); Home of the Arts Gallery, Gold Coast, Australia; the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship, Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Sydney, 2020 and 2022; the National Photography Prize, Murray Art Museum Albury, Australia, 2024.

His work has been featured on the cover of “Art Monthly Australasia,” and written about in “Artist Profile,” “Art Collector,” “VAULT Magazine,” and “The Australian Financial Review.” His work is held in public and private collections including Home of the Arts and Artbank Australia. He has participated in residencies at the Three Shadows Photography Centre in Beijing and Xiamen, China (2019) and ran educational workshops for the Australian Centre for Photography, the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre; and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney.