Prix Pictet Human

After the successful presentation of the fifth cycle of the Prix Pictet, Consumption, at Cercle Cité in 2014, Prix Pictet returns to Cercle Cité’s Ratskeller for a second time with its cycle Human. The exhibition will showcase the work of the twelve shortlisted photographers, all of whom have explored the theme of humanity in a unique and contemporary way. At a ceremony at the Victoria & Albert Museum in September 2023, Indian photographer Gauri Gill was announced as the winner of Prix Pictet Human. For more than two decades, Gill has been shedding light on the peripheries and everyday life of the rural population of India.

Prix Pictet Human showcases the work of twelve outstanding photographers shortlisted for the tenth cycle of the award. Their work constitutes a powerful exploration of the various facets of the theme Human. In their own unique way, each of the shortlisted photographers explores our shared humanity and the vast spectrum of our interactions with the world. The shortlisted portfolios span documentary, portraiture, landscape, and studies of light and process, and explore issues ranging from the plight of indigenous peoples, conflict, childhood, the collapse of economic processes, to the traces of human habitation and industrial development, gang violence, border lands, and migration. Their work evaluates our role as stewards of the planet and sheds light on the critical issues of global sustainability, the central concern of the Prix Pictet since its inception fifteen years ago.

For more than forty years Ragnar Axelsson has charted the dramatic changes in the lives of the indigenous people, landscapes and environments on the fringes of the habitable world. A concern for the lives and disappearing homelands of the indigenous people of the Andes mountains informs the work of Alessandro Cinque. Gauri Gill spent more than two decades photographing the joy, pain and tenderness woven into the fabric of some of those who eke out a living in the remote desert region of Rajasthan, India. Federico Ríos Escobar provides agonised glimpses of South American children whose parents have elected to join the hazardous migrant voyage through the almost impassable stretch of jungle on the Colombia–Panama border known as the Darién Gap. Michał Łuczak documents the indelible marks the once-great mining industry has left on the landscape of Upper Silesia, Poland. Gera Artemova’s visual diary opens with the Russian bombardment of her hometown, Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 24, 2022. Vasantha Yogananthan’s work is filled with the dreams and despair of the post-Hurricane Katrina generation of children in New Orleans, USA. Vanessa Winship creates carefully composed portraits of schoolgirls from the Turkish borderlands. The strange, otherworldly Iranian islands of Hormuz, Qeshm and Hengam are the touchstone for Hoda Afshar’s work. Yael Martínez’s pierced photographs were made in the wake of the disappearance of family members, victims of the violence that is part of daily life in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Richard Renaldi and Siân Davey both focus on the garden as a place of hope and reconnection in their work, a place that serves both as a metaphor for the human heart and a potential source of harmony.


Exhibition opening

Friday 18 October at 18:00

Free entrance and without registration

Free guided tour every Saturday 

19.10 at 15:00 (FR)
26.10 at 15:00 (EN)
02.11 at 15:00 (LU/DE)
09.11 at 15:00 (FR)
16.11 at 15:00 (EN)
30.11 at 15:00 (LU/DE)
07.12 at 15:00 (FR)
14.12 at 15:00 (EN)
21.12 at 15:00 (LU/DE)
28.12 at 15:00 (FR)
04.01 at 15:00 (EN)
11.01 at 15:00 (LU/DE)
18.01 at 15:00 (FR)

Free entrance and without registration