Cultural Development Consulting

Europe may be in state of economic disarray, but, undeterred, the Austrian capital of Vienna is launching new awards for documentary photography with 7,000EUROS (c$9,250US) in prize money.

The Viennese International Photographic Awards (‘VIPA’) spring from a partnership between the photographer Raed Bawayah and Kunstnetzwerk art gallery and network, who have developed the project in collaboration with the European Month of Photography Vienna, which is called ‘Eyes-On’.

Conceived as an annual event, shortlisted finalists will be invited to take part in a group exhibition in November as part of the Eyes-On and will be published in the VIPA catalogue. The awards are divided into three sections – 1st prize (4,000 EURO), 2nd prize (2,000 EURO) and 3rd prize (1,000 EURO) – and will be presented at the opening of the exhibition on 15 November.

The competition is open to photographic series of between two and five images; it does not consider single images. The judges for the inaugural award are the American photographer Michael Ackerman, the Paris-based documented of marginalised peoples Raed Bawayah, the Austrian academic Carola Dertnig, the managing director of Eyes-On Thomas Licek and the Finnish editor in chief of Photo Raw magazine Hannamari Shakya.

Registration costs $29EURO (c$39US) and images are submitted for consideration online. For further information visit their website here.

The closing date for submissions is 30 April.

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Images (left to right): © Dani Pozo; © Lubo Stacho; © Kenneth O’Halloran

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