The Award annual award is aimed at honouring outstanding achievements in Croatian photography.
Founded in 2008, Organ Vida Photography Association is an NGO organisation dedicated to promoting contemporary photography and creating platforms for knowledge, exchange, and education.
The Association also organises an annual festival in Zagreb in September, with exhibitions and workshops, artist talks, portfolio reviews, and performances. This year’s edition takes place September 6 – 20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Organ Vida, Facebook
As tportal reports on September 6, 2017, a new award has been introduced this year – the Marina Viculin Award, named after a recently deceased, prominent local art historian, curator and former director of the Gallery Klovićevi Dvori, Marina Viculin.
Organ Vida describes the late Ms Viculin as “…a person who greatly contributed to the Croatian art scene through her promotion of photography and who changed the social perception and evaluation of photography as a medium. The Marina Viculin Award will be annually awarded for the purpose of recognition of the work of artists with outstanding achievements in Croatian photography. Photography Association Organ Vida founded the award in 2017 in order to emphasize its commitment to the creation of new artworks that enrich our society. Financial support and award are aimed at improving the development of artists and encouragement to their future work.”
Young photographer Bojan Mrđenović’s “Highway” is the first work to receive the award, presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, September 5. His work is in the process of being made and it will be on display at 2018 Organ Vida International Photography Festival.
Mrđenović pointed out that this is an excellent initiative and a step in the right direction for photographers.
“I think it’s an amazing thing that the award is not given for your previous work, but for your future work, which serves as motivation and encourages you to develop your work,” he said.
The jury, consisting of photographers, art historians, artists, and critics, rates a new approach to the medium, outstanding talent, innovative photographic language, artistic quality, relevance of topics, as well as uniqueness of expression as the main criteria for assessing the best work. The chosen author gets a HRK 25,000 award to finish his or her project and present it during the following Festival, and he or she needs to present their work to the jury two times over the course of one year.
Find out more about the festival on the official website and on Facebook.
Excerpts translated from tportal.hr.
