PhotoBook Awards
Announcing the 2024 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.
Paris Photo and Aperture are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2024 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards—an annual celebration of the photobook’s enduring role within the evolving narrative of photography. Now in its twelfth year, the awards recognize 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 940 books from fifty-nine countries around the world, including standout entries from Argentina, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. On September 18–20, the 2024 shortlist jury met in New York for three concentrated days of review and deliberation by an international team: Negar Azimi, editor in chief, Bidoun; Jacqueline Bates, photography director, Opinion, New York Times; Michael Famighetti, editor in chief, Aperture; Nontsikelelo Mutiti, director of graduate studies in graphic design, Yale School of Art; and Anna Planas, artistic director, Paris Photo.
The shortlist represents more than just the most highly produced, classically beautiful books—it is also an expression of the possibilities of bookmaking across a broad spectrum of resources, intentions, and storytelling techniques. As jury member Michael Famighetti stated, “It was exciting to see such a range of ideas, topics, processes, and forms explored through the photobook. I’m grateful to the jury for dedicating so much time and care to reviewing the submissions, and to our community of dedicated bookmakers, photographers, and scholars for producing and submitting such a powerful selection of work.”
“Serving on the jury offered an intensive and rewarding view into the past year’s publications,” juror Jacqueline Bates observed. “Reviewing books from fifty-nine countries was an extraordinary task. Even among shared themes, each project took a different approach. Of the 940 entries, every single book was unique.”
Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo, and Florence Bourgeois, director of Paris Photo, commented: “The presentation of the shortlisted books at Paris Photo is one of the highlights of the event. The selections chosen for the PhotoBook Awards share an international vision of the production of photography books, and with the pulse of contemporary creativity, they embody the vitality of publishing today.”
A final jury will meet at Paris Photo this November to select the winners for all three prizes, which will be revealed on Friday, November 8. From there, the shortlisted books will be exhibited in Paris, followed by an international tour, including New York at Printed Matter, in January 2025, among other venues to be announced.
Below, see the thirty-five selected titles for the 2024 PhotoBook Awards shortlist.
First PhotoBook
Hady Barry
i am (not) your mother
Self-published, Penumbra Foundation, New York
Design by Hady Barry
Ciro Battiloro
Silence Is a Gift
Chose Commune, Marseille, France
Design by Cécile Poimbœuf-Koizumi and Perrine Serre
Angeniet Berkers
Lebensborn: Birth Politics in the Third Reich
The Eriskay Connection, Breda, Netherlands
Design by Rob van Hoesel
Claire Cocano
Rue Désiré Chevalier
Self-published, Paris
Design by Claire Cocano
Barbara Debeuckelaere
’Om (Mother)
The Eriskay Connection, Breda, Netherlands
Design by Carel Fransen
Simone Engelen
27 Drafts
Fw:Books, Amsterdam
Design by Hans Gremmen
Janick Entremont
If Time Does Not End
Self-published, Berlin
Design by Janick Entremont
Ismail Ferdous
Sea Beach
Imageless, Shanghai
Design by RELATED DEPARTMENT
Toma Gerzha
Control Refresh
The Eriskay Connection, Breda, Netherlands
Design by Rob van Hoesel
Virginia Hanusik
Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana
Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, New York
Design by New Information, Dave Yun, and Inyeong Cho
Abdulhamid Kircher
Rotting from Within
Loose Joints Publishing, Marseille, France / London
Design by Loose Joints Studio
Hassan Kurbanbaev
One Head and Thousand Years
Art Paper Editions, Ghent, Belgium
Design by Jurgen Maelfeyt
Srinivas Kuruganti
Pictures in My Hand of a Boy I Still Resemble
Self-published / Marigold Books, Delhi, India
Design by Srinivas Kuruganti
Nicola Moscelli
Dead End
Penisola Edizioni and Antiga Edizioni, Crocetta del Montello, Italy
Design by Roberto Vito D’Amico
RaMell Ross
Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body
MACK, London
Design by Morgan Crowcroft-Brown
Melissa Shook
Daily Self-Portraits 1972–1973
TBW Books, Oakland, California
Design by Paul Schiek
Ngadi Smart
Wata Na Life
Loose Joints Publishing, Marseille, France / London
Design by Loose Joints Studio
Tsai Ting Bang
Born from the Same Root
Self-published, Taipei
Design by Tsai Ting Bang and Shū Hé Zhì
Rawsht Twana
Twana’s Box: The Photographic Life of Twana Abdullah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 1974–1992
Fraglich Publishing, Bregenz, Austria
Design by Stefano Carini and Lukas Birk
Róisín White
Lay Her Down Upon Her Back
Witty Books, Turin, Italy, Landskrona Foto, Sweden, and Breadfield Press, Malmö, Sweden
Design by Tommaso Tanini
PhotoBook of the Year
Taysir Batniji
Disruptions
Loose Joints Publishing, Marseille, France / London
Design by Loose Joints Studio
Cai Dongdong
Passing By Beijing
Cai Dongdong Studio, Beijing
Design by Wang Lisha
Lia Darjes
Plates I–XXXI
Chose Commune, Marseille, France
Design by Cécile Poimbœuf-Koizumi and Perrine Serre
Jessica Ingram
We Are Carver
Self-published, Dallenwil, Switzerland
Design by Michael Schmelling / 40 Worth
Akihiko Okamura
Les souvenirs des autres (The Memories of Others)
Atelier EXB, Paris
Design by François Dezafit
César Rodríguez
Hoja Dorada
KWY, Lima, Peru
Design by Vera Lucía Jiménez
Rosalind Fox Solomon
A Woman I Once Knew
MACK, London
Design by Morgan Crowcroft-Brown
Peter van Agtmael
Look at the U.S.A.: A Diary of War and Home
Thames & Hudson, London
Design by Bonnie Briant Design
Awoiska van der Molen
The Humanness of Our Lonely Selves
Fw:Books, Amsterdam
Design by Hans Gremmen
Carmen Winant
The Last Safe Abortion
SPBH Editions, London
Design by Brian Paul Lamotte
Photography Catalog of the Year
Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering
Katia Reich
Spector Books, Leipzig, Germany
Design by Helmut Völter
Flashpoint! Protest Photography in Print, 1950–Present
Russet Lederman and Olga Yatskevich
10×10 Photobooks, New York
Design by Huber / Sterzinger and Miloš Gavrić
Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm—Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection
Grace Wales Bonner
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Design by Peter Miles
Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s–90s Britain
Joy Gregory, editor, and Taous Dahmani, associate editor
Autograph and MACK, London
Design by Morgan Crowcroft-Brown
Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Lines and Bodies
Diane Dufour and Mei Asakura
Atelier EXB and LE BAL, Paris
Design by Coline Aguettaz
The 2024 PhotoBook Award winners will be announced during Paris Photo on Friday, November 8, at 3:00 p.m. (CET).