Irish photographer and filmmaker Richard Mosse has been announced as the winner of the 7th Prix Pictet. Chosen from a shortlist of 12 photographers, his series Heat Maps (2016–17) follows the journeys of migrants across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa using a military grade thermal camera that is able to detect body heat from a distance of 30.3 km. Mosse was awarded the Prix Pictet by honorary president of the prize Kofi Annan at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and will receive 100,000 Swiss Francs (about £78,000) in prize money.
Speaking of Mosse’s ‘Heat Maps’ series, David King, chair of the judges, has said: ‘It is a brilliantly original and topical narrative on the fragile lives of displaced people, who cling to existence in the margins of first world economies.’
Photographers on the shortlist were:
Mandy Barker, UK
Saskia Groneberg, Germany
Beate Guetschow, Germany
Rinko Kawauchi, Japan
Benny Lam, Hong Kong
Richard Mosse, Ireland
Sohei Nishino, Japan
Sergey Ponomarev, Russia
Thomas Ruff, Germany
Munem Wasif, Bangladesh
Pavel Wolberg, Russia
Michael Wolf, Germany
Read our review of Richard Mosse’s show at the Barbican Centre, London
5 May 2017
