Jansen Van Staden wins Charta Photobook Festival Dummy Award 2021
Jansen Van Staden has won the Charta Dummy Award 2021 for the best photobook dummy, his titled ‘Microlight’.
Artists were invited to submit outstanding work of any theme, with ‘an original approach to both contemporary languages and storytelling’. Van Staden was among 25 artists that were shortlisted for the prize, all of whom submitted a photobook dummy of their own work. Van Staden will receive 5000 euros towards the publishing of the photobook, and will have the first edition published through Yogurt Editions, a curatorial platform that explores new directions in contemporary photography.
About Jansen van Staden
Jansen Van Staden (b.1986) uses street photography as a conceptual entry point to reflect on personal and social constructs of belonging and disconnect.
He became a fellow at the Goethe Institut’s Photographers’ Masterclass in 2017 and graduated in 2018. His work was shown in ‘Cities and Memory’ at Brandts, Odense as part of the Photo Biennale in Denmark (2016) and in Nimes, France as part of the South African show ‘Resiste’ at NegPos gallery (2017).
He received the CAP Contemporary African Photography prize (2019) for his series 'Microlight', and the concurrent exhibitions and screenings have travelled Africa and Europe. As a dummy 'Microlight' was exhibited at the 2020 Photobook Week Aarhus, Denmark, as part of the exhibition 'Intimacy and Resistance', curated by John Fleetwood.
Van Staden was a nominee for the 2020 Paul Huf Award. He lives and works in Cape Town and is represented by From here on (Photo:)
About ‘Microlight´
'Microlight' was initiated after the death of van Staden’s father in a microlight accident in Kenya in 2011. Van Staden later found a letter from his father to his therapist detailing acts he committed as a seventeen-year old conscript in the South African Defence Force deployed to the South African Border War.
The photography series follows his attempts to unravel the mystery of his father while also questioning ideas of nationalism, and first-hand and intergenerational trauma which are being confronted by younger, post-war generations across the region and around the world.
In Charta’s Dummy Award 2021 winner announcement found here, Jansen says, “Microlight is a collection of anecdotes. And through telling these stories, I hope to open this discussion. I yearn for healing. I want to understand, so that I can accept, and move on.”
About Charta Photobook Festival
Charta is a contemporary photography festival focused on photo books and independent publishing. The festival envisions a visual itinerary consisting of different exhibitions of photographic books approaching a specific theme, scattered in different spaces in the heart of San Lorenzo, the art district of Rome. The book exhibitions program is completed with a rich schedule of events: editorial previews, workshops, installations, exhibitions, portfolio reviews with distributors and publishers, and a bookshop with a fine selection of independent publications.
Learn more about Charta:
https://chartafestival.com/en/
Learn more about Charta Dummy Award 2021:
https://chartafestival.com/shortlist-2021/
Posted 27/10/2021