The four artists shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2027 are Hoda Afshar, Lotus L. Kang, Sasha Kurmaz and Salvatore Vitale. All born in the early to mid-1980s (as were all but one of the judges), this edition's selected artists invite a generational reading. Having grown up during the transition from analogue to digital, they share a formative experience, reflected in their varied approaches to the materiality and authority of the image. The shortlist’s focus on recent and ongoing projects, without an historical-survey contender, also creates a heightened sense of discovery similar to the award’s early editions.
From Hoda Afshar's series The Fold (2019-25) Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Australia
Afshar, born in Iran and now living in Australia, has been shortlisted for her exhibition Performing the Invisible which was on view at the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac in Paris in 2025-26. Its central project, The Fold (2019-25), reworks a colonial photographic archive held by the French museum to question how veiled bodies have been represented and understood in the past.
Installation view of Lotus L. Kang's The face of desire is loss at the Bvlgari Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2026 Courtesy the artist, Bvlgari, Commonwealth and Council, Franz Kaka, Kukje Gallery and Esther Schipper Berlin/Paris/Seoul; Photo © Andrea Rossetti
Kang, a Canadian installation artist based in New York, is selected for the commission The face of desire is loss that was exhibited at the Bvlgari Pavilion during this year’s Venice Biennale, which combines sculpture and film with suspended lengths of unfixed photographic material that change with exposure to light and humidity.
Kurmaz is a Kyiv-based photographer known for his conceptual artist’s books. He is shortlisted for the photobook Red Horse (2025), published by Éditions Images Vevey, which assembles photographs, notes, drawings and found materials into an 800-page account of life following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Salvatore Vitale's Untitled (2025), from the series Death by GPS (2022–26) © Salvatore Vitale
Vitale’s exhibition Sabotage, shown at Photo Elysée in Lausanne this year, examines the human cost of the digital economy. Combining the Italian photographer’s pictures with films and images commissioned from workers in South Africa through the freelance website Upwork, he connects insecure online employment with the mining of materials that sustain our technological lives.
A selection of the artists’ works will be exhibited at the Photographers’ Gallery in London from 10 March to 6 June 2027 with the £30,000 prize winner announced on 29 April 2027.