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\u00a9 Rimaldas Viksraitis <\/span><\/p>\n On the last night of Les Rencontres D\u2019Arles we queue to enter the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Antique for the screening of Nan Goldin\u2019s ground breaking \u201cThe Ballad of Sexual Dependency\u201d, an epic 50 min slideshow of 700 intensely personal images taken in New York during the 70s and 80s, accompanied for the first time by eccentric London-based musicians The Tiger Lillies. The queue descends into a moshpit as we jostle to get through the tiny gate. The security guards argue in French and I am told that each thought the other was keeping count. One of the guards tells the crowd that the event has sold out; we wave our tickets and push our way inside. For a night with Nan Goldin, famous for her autobiographical photographs of sex and drugs, it all feels suitably rock and roll.<\/p>\n The night begins with the Rencontres D\u2019Arles Awards Ceremony. This year the festival is celebrating its 40th year, and while many of the exhibitions on offer are retrospective in nature, the Discovery Award in contrast looks firmly ahead at the work of emerging photographers. Fifteen established names in the photographic community nominate an emerging photographer who stands to win 25,000 Euro prize money and international recognition.<\/p>\n Stand out work in this year\u2019s Discovery Award exhibition includes Irish photographer Don McNeill Healy\u2019s long term project documenting a Traveler family in Dublin. One particularly striking image shows 15 year old Rosie at her wedding reception wearing an elaborate crown and dress, feeding her new newborn baby next to the band\u2019s drum kit, while her equally adolescent looking new husband sits behind her, deep in thought\u2026or possibly shock.<\/p>\n Palestinian photographer Raed Bawayah has photographed patients in the Mental Health Hospital in Bethlehem in the West Bank, his goal \u201cto reveal a difficult situation and give it legitimacy and credibility\u201d. One image shows a patient completely covered by a hospital blanket, only a tuft of hair revealed; the blanket could be a death shroud or a thing of warmth and comfort. Another patient, with just an extended arm and delicately held wrist visible, seems to swim backstroke through the heaped blankets. A line from a Stevie Smith poem springs to mind – Not waving but drowning.<\/p>\n Lithuanian photographer Rimaldas Viksraitis is announced as this year\u2019s Discovery Award winner. Photographing his local community and the fast disappearing rural way of life Viksraitis says \u201cThis is life on the farm\u201d. This is life on the farm – I am guessing – like you have never seen it before. Copious amounts of home-brew booze is consumed, people get naked a lot, and various animals pop up everywhere, on dressers, on tables, in tight embraces or held aloft by the hind legs. Looking at his images it is obvious there is a profound tenderness and intimacy between Viksraitis and the subjects of his photographs and through this we gain access to his story. As Martin Parr says in his nominating statement Viksraitis\u2019s images offer us a \u201cringside seat, with all the emotion, the drink and the ensuing madness.\u201d<\/p>\n The annual Book Award gathers entries from publishers across the globe. The resulting exhibition is like being a kid in the proverbial candy store with 400 photo books published in the last year on display. To save us all from temptation they are securely fixed to the tables. At the end of the festival one of each book is donated to the National School of Photography.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s winner in the Historical category for best published thematic or monographic book is In History by Susan Meiselas (Steidl Verlag). Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the International Center of Photography, the catalogue is the first compendium of Meiselas\u2019s work examining ideas of photographic representation, collaboration, history and memory.<\/p>\n In the Contemporary category for best photographers project book From Back Home by Anders Petersen and JH Engstr\u00f6m (Max Str\u00f6m, publisher) is awarded the coveted prize. Petersen and Engstr\u00f6m are two of Sweden\u2019s most renowned photographers who have collaborated on a book about their homeland.<\/p>\n![\"\u00a9](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/Bawayah_450.jpg?resize=450%2C364&ssl=1\" "\\"\u00a9")
\u00a9 Raed Bawayah <\/span><\/p>\n
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