The winners of the two photography awards, the Felix Schoeller Photo Award and the German Peace Prize for Photography, were announced on Thursday, 25 September.


One of the images from Axel Javier Sulzbacher’s ‘Green Dystopia’ portfolio. © Axel Javier Sulzbacher.

The international competition attracted entries from 88 countries who responded in different ways to the ‘Sustainability’ theme. One of the main prizes was awarded to Axel Javier Sulzbacher, a German-Mexican photojournalist, for his series Green Dystopia, which highlights the issues associated with the growing demand for avocados, which has seen Mexican forests being illegally cleared by slash-and-burn practices to make way for avocado plantations. More than 300,000 jobs depend directly or indirectly on the production and trade of avocados in the region, which generates annual sales of US$2.5 billion. In 2021, Michoacán alone produced around 1.8 million tons of avocados. In the ongoing drug war, the cartels have become aware of the revenue potential from the avocado trade.


‘i ain’t from no east coast’, by winner of the Young Talent award, Verdiana Albano. © Verdiana Albano.

Verdiana Albano, an Afro-European artist who lives in Frankfurt and Berlin, has won the Young Talent Category in this year’s Felix Schoeller Photo Award with a composite image that questions  her own fragmented Afro-European history. Using her parents’ Stasi files and personal and institutional image archives, she assembled a collage addressing questions like when you are constantly asked where you come from, what remains? Promises, norms, patterns. And then—what next? The show is over. The dream remains.


© Maximilian Mann, winner of the German Peace Prize for Photography, “Letzte Rettung Oberhausen” (Last Rescue Oberhausen)

The German Peace Prize for Photography was awarded to Maximilian Mann for his work, “Letzte Rettung Oberhausen” (Last Resort Oberhausen), which focuses on a special place in the Ruhr region where the global crises and conflicts of this world take on a frightening proximity: the Peace Village Oberhausen. Here, the consequences of war and violence are manifested in faces marked by burn scars, injuries, and pain. Through medical care and the dedication of volunteer doctors, the children not only receive physical healing, but also a perspective – a moment of carefree laughter, a step back into life.

Further information, as well as all other winners and nominees, can be found here.