Once again, the Star Photobook Dummy Award highlights some of the best photobook projects in the world, while paying tribute to the creativity and values of the much-missed graphic designer Inés Casals.
For this sixth edition of the Award, the team of international nominators put forward 113 photobook dummies from 34 countries.
The jury for this sixth edition of the competition, made up of professionals with long careers in the field, praised the high overall quality of all the submissions and selected six finalist dummies, each in the running to become a published photobook through the Star Award. We announce them below.
6 photobook dummies shortlisted for the Star Photobook Dummy Award
The shortlisted dummies, in alphabetical order by title, are:
No hay cielo detrás, by Paula Elena Ramos (ESP)
Nominated by Jon Uriarte.
At twenty-seven, Paula Elena Ramos died from a total electrical failure of my heart. During resuscitation, she left her body and crossed into a darkness filled with luminous silhouettes. She returned with an implanted motor and unanswered questions.
Stay / Leave. An Atlas of Stillness and Motion, by Roc Herms (ESP)
Nominated by Jon Uriarte.
In 2016, Roc Herms decided to leave everything behind and embark on a long motorcycle journey that took him across several continents, until his parents’ illness and subsequent deaths brought his travels to a halt. Stay / Leave reflects on stillness and movement, bringing together maps, messages, searches, photographs, and fragments of digital interfaces. Through these elements, the life journeys of both the artist and his parents are narrated, revealing how digitalization permeates everything, from the most remote corners of the physical world to the most intimate aspects of life and death.
The Bread and the Flowers, by Myriam Meloni (FRA/ITA).
Nominated by Mireia Plans.
How much can a city be shaped by its own colonial myth? The Bread and the Flowers moves beyond Tangier’s cosmopolitan and exoticized image, turning toward what that image leaves out: class, desire, and the fragile persistence of a city constantly evolving and resisting between its inherited past and the pressures of globalization.
Two People, by Sean Lee (SGP).
Nominated by Gwen Lee.
Over fifteen years, Sean Lee photographed his parents as they aged. Through ordinary moments and quiet gestures, Two People reflects on time, care, memory, and the dignity of everyday life.
Y vio Dios que era bueno, by Fosi Vegue (ESP).
Nominated by Alberto Salván and Miren Pastor.
In a world governed by business empires, with society captive to digital technologies and the downfall of democratic order, we live in a state of complete and utter confusion. Our existence is already a simulation that unfolds on a stage where normality gives way to the absurd, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
Zarcillo, by Elena Bulet (ESP).
Nominated by Eugeni Gay.
This project is a photographic investigation that seeks to decipher the transformations of the Andalusian region of Axarquía through layers of memory and fabulation.