The jury of the V edition of the Star Photobook Dummy Award has chosen as winner Make Me Beautiful, by Yufan Lu, which now will become a photobook with international distribution.
Nominated by Canadian photographer Donald Weber, professor at Aalto University (Finland), Yufan Lu approaches the theme of beauty stereotypes in a personal and direct manner in her project Make Me Beautiful.
Drawing on her long-term artistic research in her home country, China, she places herself at the center of the work—both literally and conceptually. With a light and witty tone, she takes us through the process of being screened by beauty clinics and “re-designed” according to plastic surgeons’ advice.
The V Star Photobook Dummy Award jury’s decision is based on the following verdict:
Her style is fresh and precise, echoing the sterile environments she documents. Yet, this clean narrative is disrupted by marker notes, paper cutouts, and social media screenshots, which ground the project in a vivid, contemporary reality. It is the world of continuous beauty expectations, especially geared to young women, that she reflects on and, on her journey, takes us through the absurd demands for intervention and sacrifice to which she symbolically subjects herself.
The accompanying text, written at times in a detached, medical style, and at others with a pushy marketing tone, enhances the sense of estrangement that Lu seeks to underline, prompting us to question the meaning behind these rituals of beauty, the societal expectations and our own sense of self.
Make Me Beautiful powerfully embodies many of the values championed by the Star Photobook Dummy Award
Make Me Beautiful powerfully embodies many of the values championed by the Star Photobook Dummy Award —acceptance, empowerment, self-care, and self-determination— while maintaining a sharp sense of irony and unconventionality.
Yufan Lu (b.1991, Tianjin, China) explores image-making as a way of thinking, remembering, feeling and living. Her work takes the form of still and moving image, sculpture, photobook, exhibition and everyday life, which reflect her unconstrained and fluid definition of photography. She often uses herself as a medium to address universal social issues and evoke emotional resonance. Her works were exhibited internationally, and received recognitions including the PHMuseum Grant New Generation Honorable Mention, the Firecracker Photography Grant and the Encontros da Imagem Photobook Award. Lu has a master’s degree in Photography and Urban Cultures from Goldsmiths College. Lu is a member of alumni of Magnum Foundation’s Photography Expanded Mentorship Program, and the 2020 World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass.
From the Photographic Foundation, we thank the international nominators for the high quality of all the proposals submitted, and we also thank the jury for their difficult work in selecting and evaluating all the models.
We congratulate all the authors of the submitted layouts, especially the fifteen finalist dummies and, of course, the eventual winner. We are eagerly awaiting the process of transforming the Make Me Beautiful layout into a photobook, alongside its creator, Yufan Lu, and the collaborating publishers: Ediciones Posibles, Phree, and Editorial RM.
