Emaho Foundation’s Emerging Asian Photography Grant Winner Announced

"The Emaho Foundation has just announced its first grant towards honouring and identifying the work of gifted photographers in Asia. The Emaho Emerging Asian Photography Grant, born out of the foundation, aims to provide financial support of 5000 USD to deserving applicants and provide and international platform to exhibit their work to a broader audiences. “The grant will be awarded to a photographer selected by a reputed panel of international jury on the basis of her/his photographic brilliance, a distinct viewpoint, sincere engagement with the subject matter and a strong desire to establish the body of works internationally.”"

India – We are delighted to announce that Tsunomu Yamagata has won the Emaho Foundation‘s Emerging Asian Photography Grant 2015 for ‘Ten Disciples’, a project on Japanese valley, filled with radio-active rocks and high ground temperature, curing cancer patients. With his high-contrast black and white images, Yamagata explores the Japanese view of life and death in this valley. Along with a solo show at New Art Exchange, Nottingham in 2016, Yamagata will also get a Leica camera from the LFI loan pool.

“Based on a personal experience and revealing a totally unknown aspect of Japanese culture and tradition his work becomes totally universal. Because it concerns millions of people around the world and proposes an alternative to all medical proposals. The aesthetics choices, radically contemporary, without any nostalgia but full of emotion, drive us to a deep proposal of sharing experience and looking at the closest world as being significant”. – Christian Caujolle, Founder of Agency VU (France)

Emerging Asian Photography Grant also announced 5 finalists, whose work will be promoted by the foundation. The finalists are –

Jiehao Su (CHINA) — His project ‘Borderland’ is about recalling his personal memories, and presenting his autobiographical portrait of his homeland.

Prasiit Stahpit (NEPAL) — His long term project ‘Change of Course’ documented the dispute between two countries India and Nepal, relocation of Susta village, and building of retaining walls along the banks of Narayani river.

Kursat Bayhan (TURKEY) — With his Kurdish roots, he addresses the notion of origin and sense of belonging with his long term project ‘Roots / A Point of Origin’.

Olga Ingurazova (RUSSIA) — She aims to weave two stories together, stories entailed by devastating civil war that struck Abkhazia and its aftermath of its geopolitical isolation with her project ‘Scars of Independence’.

Miki Soejima (JAPAN) — His project ‘The Passenger’s Present’ explores the multi-layered view of Japanese contemporary society at a time, also questions the relationship between different aspects of society as well as the underlying myths.

We extend our gratitude to the panel of judges – The 2015 panel of judges consisted of: Christian Caujolle: Founder of Agence VU, (France) Kira Pollack: Director of Photography at Time Magazine, (USA) Manik Katyal: Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Emaho Magazine, (India) Naoko Ohta: President and CEO of Klee, Inc. (Japan) Newsha Tavakolian: Award Winning Documentary Photographer, (Iran)