Location: Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunziata dei Servi, Piazza dei Servi, Lucca

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LEICA OSKAR BARNACK AWARD 2019

In the main category, ‘Leica Oskar Barnack Award’, American photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz convinced the five members of the jury with his impressive long-term project titled Water.
In the category ‘Leica Oskar Barnack Award Newcomer’ for up-and-coming professional photographers aged up to 28, Nanna Heitmann won with his series Hiding from Baba Yaga.

Exploring a diversity of levels, Mustafah Abdulaziz’s complex photo essay reveals how humanity deals with water and the ways in which it is urgently needed. With his frequently metaphorical imagery, he wants to make the viewer aware of the urgency of the situation: water is life. Abdulaziz sees his Water project less as a report and more as a commentary on how human beings interact with nature, and what this means for our civilisation and our future. In his monumental series, the photographer reveals the many facets of our relationship with nature and our planet.

A seemingly endless river, enchanted forests and people in search of freedom: Nanna Heitmanns series documents life along the Yenisei, one of the longest rivers on the planet. The river served to guide the photographer through Siberia: a journey into a kingdom of myths. The initial impulse for her project came during a semester abroad in Tomsk, Siberia. Before that, Heitmann’s idea of Russia, her mother’s homeland, had been defined primarily by Soviet children’s films and Slavic fairy tales. That was how she had come to know of Baba Yaga – a figure from Slavic folklore, who lent her name to Heitmann’s series.

The exhibition will include also the works of the other 10 finalists: Francesco Anselmi, Mustafa Hassona, Rafael Heygster, Enayat Asadi, Tadas Kazakevičius, Tomas Van Houtryve, Michal Solarski, Willner – Olsson, Snezhana Von Büdingen e Sebastian Welles.

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