Lift Off: Weekly News Roundup

On September 18, Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) named Işık Kaya, Devashish Gaur, Reyad Abedin, and Khadija El-Abyad as the winners of its inaugural photo prize at the opening of the annual Vantage Point Sharjah 9 (VPS9) exhibition dedicated to photography. The jury of photographers Ammar Al Attar, Sham Enbashi, Alia Al Shamsi, and M’hammed Kilito selected the winners from more than 500 entries in four categories. In conceptual photography, Kaya won for her Second Nature project, depicting cell towers camouflaged as trees in California; Gaur’s This Is the Closest We Will Get, in the experimental category, examines the intergenerational gap with a grandfather he never met; Abedin won for photojournalism and documentary with images that documented displacement forced by ecological and socio-political disasters in Dhaka from the series The Name of My City is Dust, Smoke and Life and In Search of Lost Tune; and, in the staged photography group, El-Abyad’s Défilé de l’intime situates the female body in nature and explores the sense of intimacy with a focus on hair. Featuring more than 200 photos by 53 photographers from 30 countries, VSP9 is currently on view until December 18.

• Australia
• Japan
• UK
• United Arab Emirates
• Hong Kong
• Saudi Arabia
• Korea
• South