Once again, the Star Photobook Dummy Award distinguishes some of the best photobook projects in the world, while it pays tribute to the creativity and values of the late graphic designer Inés Casals.
In this fifth edition of the Award the international nominating team presented 135 photobook dummies from 43 countries, with slightly more female participants than male ones.
The jury for this fifth edition of the competition, composed of professionals with extensive experience, highlighted the overall high quality of all entries and selected fifteen finalist dummies as candidates to become photobooks thanks to the Star Award.
15 photobook dummies nominated for the Star Photobook Dummy Award
The candidate dummies, in alphabetical order of their titles, are:
Almost Everything About My Parents, by Leonor Alexandrino (PRT)
Nominated by Martin Bollati.
Two lives, two two crossing memories, to create one’s own. This book is an ode to the author’s parents’ lives before parenthood and it’s also a protest against the fragility of time and memory: What remains of us when we are no longer here?
Altiplano, by Pablo Castilla (ESP)
Nominated by Jesús Micó.
A visual journey through the Altiplano, a territory in South Spain, where photography seeks to connect with a vanished, invisible past beneath the surface.
Make Me Beautiful, by Yufan Lu (CHN)
Nominated by Donald Weber.
In this project, the artist visits over thirty cosmetic surgery clinics with a self-portrait. Through the consultants’ assessments and surgical proposals, she reflects on beauty standards, desire, and vulnerability in a society obsessed with perfection.
Nine Waves, by Elo Vázquez (ESP)
Nominated by Gustavo Alemán, Román Yñán and Elisa Miralles.
Nine Waves is a personal story of the author’s years of infertility (of searching, waiting, rituals, uncertainty), a taboo issue that affects 1 out of 6 couples nowadays but that will affect many more in the future: by 2050, 41% of men will be in infertile.
Nòstos, by Andrea Agostini (ITA)
Nominated by Krzysztof Candrowicz.
This book traces the author’s return to the landscapes of a lost childhood—a personal journey toward reconciliation with the past. Through memories, dreams, and imagined encounters, he pieces together a mosaic of identity, confronting old ghosts not with fear, but with acceptance. It is a quiet pilgrimage to the roots of self.
Olga Ignatovich. In The Shadow Of The Big Brother, by Arthur Bondar (UKR)
Nominated by Anna Zekria.
The book showcases the previously unknown work of Olga Ignatovich, who documented WWII from the Soviet side. Her photographs serve as both historical records and powerful visual narratives, offering a more intimate and human perspective on the war.
Peeling The Paris Green, by Amy D’Agorne (GBR)
Nominated by Mimi Mollica.
Peeling The Paris Green is a timely book that weaves together; documentary photography, deep research, poetry, and performative still lives, to investigate the complex history of the humble potato.
Reinventario, by Laura Fiorio (ITA)
Nominated by Francesca Serravale.
Reinventario explores the legacy of an abandoned glass factory through an inventory of rescued objects, photographs, and documents. Positioned between memory and transformation, the project reflects on how history is preserved and who controls that narrative.
RHI-ENTRY, by Rhiannon Adam (IRL)
Nominated by Yumi Goto.
Rhi-Entry charts artist Rhiannon Adam’s psychological recalibration to “normal life” after the cancellation of the dearMoon mission, the world’s first civilian lunar circumnavigation, on which she was to be a crew member. The book blends original images with scrapbook type ephemera charting the rise and fall of the mission.
Rue Désiré Chevalier, by Claire Cocano (FRA)
Nominated by Yumi Goto.
In the 1960s, the author’s grandparents left Yugoslavia and settled in France, in an apartment where, three decades later, they would witness the breakup of their homeland. Drawing on family photographs, archival material, and her own images, the author reconstructs their migration story, blending personal history with collective memory.
The Shepherds Way, by Dimitry Gomberg (GEO)
Nominated by Juanjo Justicia.
This work tells the story of Vazha Kaadze and the Tush people, a community living in the Caucasus mountains who lead intense lives without phones or social networks. They follow a unique mix of paganism, Judaism, and Orthodox Christianity, performing rituals at ancient sacred sites. Men often die young, women work abroad, and shepherding—an ancient, dangerous tradition—is the main way men support their families. The Tush are brave, resilient, and shaped by harsh mountain conditions.
State Of Denial, by Aliaksandra Vialichka (BLR)
Nominated by Andrei Liankevich.
State of Denial explores human functioning in a digital reality full of fake news, deep fakes, propaganda media manipulation, using Belarus as a case study of how state-controlled narratives can replace truth with illusion.
They Placed The Tiles Afterwards, by Sara Sallam (EGY)
Nominated by Emma Raynes.
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo has been in a constant state of transformation over the past years. One statue, imagined as a storyteller, recalls her uprooting as she is about to be relocated to the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Gizeh.
Tribus – Where The Spades Have Turned, by Anna Twardowska (POL)
Nominated by Erik Vroons.
Anna Twardowska spent years researching the Gothic stone circles in north-western Poland, gathering archaeological data and observing visitors to these sites. Her work reveals two opposing perspectives: the scientific and the subjective, showing how both can coexist around these enigmatic historical remnants.
Under Pressure, by Penelope Thomaidi (GRC)
Nominated by Chiara Capodici.
Following the history of oil and gas on both sides of the greek-albanian border—at the edge of the EU—Under Pressure reflects on the geopolitics of ecology today, through photography, archival material and text.