Hasselblad award winner Dayanita Singh was honored

GaryPageau
2022 Hasselblad Award ceremony in Gothenburg, Sweden. From left – Dayanita Singh, 2022 Hasselblad Award Winner; Sten Tolgfors, Governor of Västra Götaland County in Sweden; Bronius Rudnickas, Hasselblad Marketing Manager; Christina Backman, CEO of the Hasselblad Foundation

2022 Hasselblad Award winner, New Delhi-born photographer, and bookmaker Dayanita Singh, was honored Oct. 14 at the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre and Gothia Towers in Gothenburg, Sweden. Considered the Nobel Prize in photography, this year’s prize included the sum of SEK 2,000,000, a gold medal, and a diploma. In partnership with the Hasselblad Foundation, the Hasselblad company presented Singh with two digital cameras, the newly released X2D 100C, and a 907X 50C, along with an XCD 55V lens. This is the first time a Hasselblad Award winner has received Hasselblad cameras as part of the prize package.

Founded in 1979, in accordance with Erna and Victor Hasselblad’s last will and testament, the Hasselblad Foundation is an independent organization from the Hasselblad company. The Hasselblad Foundation aims to promote research and academic teaching in the natural sciences and photography. Provided by the Hasselblad Foundation, the Hasselblad Award is an international photography prize that is granted to a photographer recognized for major achievements and has been awarded annually since 1980. An award committee comprised of internationally prominent experts and scholars in photography is appointed by the Hasselblad Foundation’s board of directors. This committee then nominates 3-5 candidates, from which the Hasselblad Foundation’s board of directors selects a winner.

Dayanita Singh Exhibition “Sea of Files” at Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden

“We are very pleased to be part of honoring Dayanita Singh and we hope this is a start of a long-lasting tradition to collaborate with the Hasselblad Foundation and equip all future Hasselblad Award winners with our latest cameras to support and elevate their photographic and artistic endeavors,” states Bronius Rudnickas, Hasselblad Marketing Manager.

Singh studied at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and furthered her studies at the International Center of Photography in New York. Her work has been displayed at major institutions such as the Hayward Gallery in London, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi. She has also published over a dozen photobooks. Singh’s most recent mobile museums enable her images to be edited, re-sequenced, archived, and displayed, allowing the viewer to participate in her embodied work.

“Receiving the Hasselblad Foundation Award means even more than anyone can imagine,” commented 2022 Hasselblad Award winner Dayanita Singh. “For me, it validates the shift I have been trying to make in my work, where the photograph is the raw material from which a final form is made. It can be anything from a single book to a whole museum. Photography is vast and full of possibilities. I accept this award as inspiration for these future creations.”

The Hasselblad Foundation highlights Singh’s unique archival work, that not only documents the lives of archives but brings about a new way to interact and experience the art of photography. An exhibition with a selection of her signature works is now open at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden until Jan. 23, 2023.