Fethi Sahraoui wins the 2024 edition of the Eiger African Photobook of the Year Award
This 2024 edition of the Eiger African Photobook of the Year Award was the subject of a great wealth of proposals. If the photographic series ranged from documentaries to more plastic or conceptual projects, the format of the participating books was also eclectic.
This point particularly weighed in the balance when choosing the winner. Among the four winners, Léonard Pongo, Asmaa Waguih Eltobi, Sabelo Mlangeni and Fethi Sahraoui, it was the latter who won over the jury with his book Triangle of Views published by the French publisher La Chambre Claire in 2022. A fitting title since, closed, the work takes the shape of an equilateral triangle. When it opens, it becomes a square or “two outstretched hands, placed next to each other, palms up. »
Two hands which present to us two long-term documentary projects carried out by the Algerian photographer since 2015 and 2016. The first, entitled Stadiumphilia is interested in Algerian football stadiums. They are a pretext for exploring “the collective masculine experience of time and space. » From these black and white crowd baths emanate a certain grace and visual poetry that we find in the second part of the book Escaping the Heatwave.
For this project, the photographer followed a group of young men, the same as those in the stadium, as they try to escape the intense heat of the towns of Mascara and Relizane. These desert natural and urban landscapes are punctuated by swimming during which we rediscover the joy and energy that animated these young people during the crowds at the stadium. Printing full-page images invites us to dive in with them.
Influenced by Robert Capa or Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fethi Sahraoui has the art of grasping the narrative potential of an image which he uses to tell us about today’s Algeria, in an original portrait mixing his personal story with collective memory.
The book Triangle of Views by Fethi Sahraoui received the first prize of the Eiger African Photobook of the Year 2024, i.e. $12,500, and $2,500 for each of the three finalists. The Eiger Foundation hopes that these awards will contribute to the continued development of African photography, sparking exciting new projects from each of these talented photographers.
The Eiger Foundation warmly thanks all the photographers and editors who entered this year’s competition for their exceptional works: “We would like to especially thank the Inside Out Center in Johannesburg for their invaluable support and seamless coordination of the awards ceremony . We look forward to next year’s edition of the Eiger African Photo Book of the Year Award, looking forward to welcoming further compelling entries from the African continent.”
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