The shortlist for the 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards<br /> All photographs by Daniel Salemi
The shortlist for the 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards
All photographs by Daniel Salemi
PhotoBook Awards

Announcing the 2023 PhotoBook Awards Shortlist

Here are the 35 shortlisted titles for this year’s Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards, which celebrate the evolving narrative of the photobook.

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 October 12, 2023

Paris Photo and Aperture are excited to announce the shortlist for the 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards—an annual celebration of the photobook’s contributions to the evolving narrative of photography. Now in its eleventh year, the award recognizes excellence in three major categories of photobook publishing: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalog of the Year.

This year, Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards received 961 books from sixty-one countries, including stand-out entries from Nepal, New Zealand, Denmark, and Japan. On September 20–22, 2023, the shortlist jury met in New York for three concentrated days of review and deliberation by an international team: Deirdre Donohue, assistant director of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, the New York Public Library; Alex Lin, creative director and owner, Studio Lin; Lesley A. Martin, editor at large, Aperture; Renée Mussai, artistic director, the Walther Collection; and Anna Planas, artistic director, Paris Photo.

Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo, and Florence Bourgeois, director of Paris Photo, jointly noted: “The PhotoBook Awards pursue, this year, their long-term commitment and support for photography books. We are very excited to celebrate this year’s exhibition with a selection that offers a source for discovery and enchantment to all photobook lovers. The PhotoBook Awards shortlist will feature thirty-five of the most relevant publications from the past year, giving an international overview of the diversity and richness of today’s production.”

Shortlist jury member Alex Lin added: “As a book designer, I truly appreciate how rare it is for a competition to so carefully judge both a book’s form and content. Having worked on Sasha Phyars-Burgess’s Untitled, the 2021 recipient of the First PhotoBook Prize, I was able to witness firsthand the impact and significance that this recognition gave to both a small publisher and to the photographer. I personally experienced the joy and satisfaction that the Prize can bring to publishers who work with limited budgets but with pure passion.”

A final jury will gather at Paris Photo this November to select winners for all three prizes, which will be revealed on Friday, November 10, 2023. From there, shortlisted and winning titles will be exhibited in Paris, and will tour internationally thereafter.

Below, see the thirty-five selected titles for the 2023 PhotoBook Awards shortlist.

First PhotoBook

Thaddé Comar
How was your dream?
Mörel Books, London
Design by Sylvan Lanz

Luis Corzo
Pasaco, 1996
Kult Books, Stockholm
Design by Claudia Rubin

Star Feliz
When Eye Land
Printed Matter Inc., New York
Design by Star Feliz with The Uses of Literacy

Liss Fenwick
Humpty Doom
Bad News Books, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Design by Stuart Geddes

Christopher Gregory-Rivera
El Gobierno Te Odia
Self-published, Penumbra Foundation, New York
Design by Alejandro Torres Viera

Steve Harries
Octopus
RVB Books, Paris
Design by Studio Mathias Clottu

Samuel James
Nightairs
Fw:Books, Amsterdam
Design by Hans Gremmen

Clifford Prince King
Orange Grove
TIS Books, New York
Design by Carl Wooley

Anu Kumar
Ghar
Perimeter Editions, Melbourne
Design by Narelle Brewer

Jan Mammey and Falk Messerschmidt
Statues Also Die
Kodoji Press, Baden, Switzerland
Design by Helmut Völter

Alejandro “Luperca” Morales
El Retrato De Tu Ausencia (The Portrait of Your Absence)
Kult Books, Stockholm, and Los Sumergidos, New York/ Mexico
Design by Fernando Gallegos

Ronit Porat
Hunting In Time
Sternthal Books, Montreal, Quebec
Design by Inedition, Eva van der Schans

Lúa Ribeira
Subida al Cielo
Dalpine, Madrid
Design by Tipode Office

César Rodríguez
Montaña Roja
KWY, Lima, Peru
Design by Vera Lucía Jiménez

Keisha Scarville
lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound
MACK, London
Design by Keisha Scarville and Morgan Crowcroft-Brown

Kristof Titeca, ed.
Nasser Road / Political Posters in Uganda
The Eriskay Connection, Breda, Netherlands
Design by Rob van Hoesel

Bindi Vora
Mountain of Salt
Perimeter Editions, Melbourne
Design by Narelle Brewer

Carla Williams
Tender
TBW Books, Oakland, California
Design by Paul Schiek

Alice Wong
Painting Photographs
TBW Books, Oakland, California
Design by Paul Schiek

Yao Yuan
1 2 3 2 1
Self-published, Antwerp, Belgium
Design by Yao Yuan

PhotoBook of the Year

Vince Aletti
The Drawer
SPBH Editions, London
Design by Bruce Usher

Frédérique Bangerter, ed.
Archivo Nómada Vol. 1: 1975-1981 Alberto García-Alix
Editorial Cabeza de Chorlito, Madrid
Design by Ricardo Báez     

Felipe Romero Beltrán
Dialect
Loose Joints, Marseille, France
Design by Loose Joints Studio

Lynne Cohen and Marina Gadonneix
Observatories/Laboratories and Laboratories/Observatories
Atelier EXB / Centre Pompidou, Paris
Design by Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié

Samuel Gratacap
Bilateral
Poursuite, Arles, France
Design by Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine

Mikiko Hara
Small Myths
Chose Commune, Marseille, France
Design by Chose Commune and Bureau Kayser

Thomas Locke Hobbs
L.A. Vedute
The Eriskay Connection, Breda, Netherlands
Design by Rob van Hoesel

Bharat Sikka
The Sapper
Fw:Books, Amsterdam
Design by Hans Gremmen

Hristina Tasheva
Far Away from Home: The Voices, the Body and the Periphery
Self-published, Bodegraven, Netherlands
Design by Collective Works

Ruth van Beek
The Oldest Thing
Van Zoetendaal Publishers, Amsterdam
Design by Willem van Zoetendaal

Photography Catalog of the Year

Casa Susanna: L’histoire du premier réseau transgenre américain, 1959–1968
Isabelle Bonnet and Sophie Hackett
Editions Textuel, Paris
Design by Agnès Dahan Studio

Japanese Photography Magazines: 1880s to 1980s
Ryuichi Kaneko, Masako Toda, Ivan Vartanian
Goliga, Tokyo
Design by Hideki Inaba

Källström-Fäldt
Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Hasselblad Foundation, B-B-B-Books, Gothenburg, Sweden
Design by Axel von Friesen

Recaptioning Congo: African Stories and Colonial Pictures
Sandrine Colard
Lannoo Publishers, Tielt, Belgium, and Fotomuseum FOMU, Antwerp, Belgium
Design by La Villa Hermosa

The Public Life of Women: A Feminist Memory Project
Diwas Raja Kc and NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati
Nepal Picture Library / photo.circle, Kathmandu, Nepal
Design by Valentina Abenavoli

The 2023 PhotoBook Award winners will be announced during Paris Photo on Friday, November 10, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. CET.

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