Shaping Cohesion - Neighbourly Relations in Europe. A Franco-German-Polish Photo Competition

In 2020, the Genshagen Foundation organized a Franco-German-Polish photo competition “Shaping Cohesion - Neighbourly Relations in Europe.” Photographers, aspiring photographers, professionals and those studying photography alike, between the ages of 18 and 35 were invited to explore the theme of neighbourhood and present their interpretations in a photo series. The jury, comprising German, French and Polish adjudicators, awarded three first prizes and three encouragement awards at an online award ceremony. The first prize, worth €2,000, has been awarded to each of the following photographers:  

• Anaïs Docteur (France) for her series Bienvenue à l'Orée (Welcome to l'Orée).
• Filip Piotrowicz (Poland) for his series A nam się zostało (And We Stayed).
• Jakob Ganslmeier (Germany) for his series Lovely Planet: Poland.

Three encouragement awards were also attributed to: Ana Zibelnik for The Shadows of Muranów; Igor Jan Zieliński for Glugla, and Selma Maglic, who documented places in the neighbourhood of her childhood and youth. These encouragement awards are worth €500 to each winner and are meant to encourage them to pursue working on their promising photo series. Despite the extraordinarily challenging working conditions during the Corona pandemic, the jury emphasized that the Genshagen Foundation nonetheless received numerous exceptional submissions from aspiring photographers from across France, Poland and Germany who each took a critical look at the theme of neighbourhood across Europe. The award-winning series grappled with various facets of neighbourhood: Anaïs Docteur succeeds in unmasking the fiction of a “good” neighbourhood in a sub-urban residential complex; Filip Piotrowicz uncovers and sensitively explores historical traces, while Jakob Ganslmeier contrasts a touristic view of Poland with that of another reality. In organizing this photo competition the Genshagen Foundation cooperated with partner universities and institutions across the three nations of the Weimar Triangle: in Germany with the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, in France with Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse, and in Poland with the Uniwersytet Artystyczny w Poznaniu - University of Arts Poznan. Jury:

• Angelika Eder, Director, Genshagen Foundation
• Ulrike Kremeier, Director of the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art, Cottbus and Frankfurt an der Oder
• Dominik Kuryłek, Museum of Photography, Head of the Photography and Photo Technology Department, Kraków
• lorence Lazar, photographer and filmmaker, Paris

Partners: Fachhochschule Potsdam, University of Applied Sciences, Germany, Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse, France and the Uniwersytet Artystyczny w Poznaniu - University of Arts Poznan, Poland

Funding: Gottfried Michelmann Foundation