The Ballarat International Foto Biennale has presented the 2025 GradFoto award of AU$1000 to Minh An Pham from RMIT University for his series Rồi một ngày con sẽ mất – Someday I will lose you.
One of the images from the series Rồi một ngày con sẽ mất – Someday I will lose you. © Minh An Pham.
The series chronicles visits to his home and mother while he was studying in Australia. Describing it, he said: In 2017, at the age of 15, I began studying abroad in Australia. With my immature thoughts at the time, I never imagined that life would take me so far from my family for so long. The project is my way of chronicling the life of my mom during the times I went back home. I have come to understand my mom more deeply, not only through the photographs but also through the time we spent together. I reflected on my family’s past, on our losses and pains, on my late father, and on the great sacrifices of a single mother who worked tirelessly to raise me and my brother alone.
GradFoto 2025 was judged by Daniella Zalcman, founder of Women Photograph, a nonprofit working to elevate the voices of women and nonbinary visual journalists. Click here for more information about the GradFoto awards and to see the work of the other finalists, who come from 10 universities across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
