Dave Jordano.
Dave Jordano has won the $50,000 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize, announced this evening at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Jordano’s win was determined by public vote and, in addition to the cash prize, he will receive a six-week, fully funded residency in Canada.
The other shortlisted artists, Annette Kelm (Germany), Owen Kydd (Canada) and Hito Steyerl (Germany), will each receive $5,000 and a six-week residency in 2016.
Based in Chicago, Jordano approaches photography with a warmly subjective eye, documenting people and places important to him, and telling stories as yet unseen. In his ongoing series Detroit Unbroken Down (begun in 2010), for example, Jordano captures images of his hometown, Detroit, that move beyond the expected photojournalistic images of closed factories and decrepit buildings. Through his lens we are introduced to individuals who have been left behind to cope with these major societal changes.
This year’s Aimia | AGO Photography Prize finalists were selected from a longlist of 27 artists by jury members Adelina Vlas, associate curator of contemporary art at the AGO, João Ribas, deputy director and senior curator of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal, and Paris-based artist Mohamed Bourouissa.
Jordano joins past winners including Lisa Oppenheim, Erin Shirreff, Jo Longhurst, Gauri Gill, Kristan Horton, Marco Antonio Cruz and Sarah Anne Johnson have all taken the top honour home in past years.
An exhibition of work by the four artists, which opened at the AGO on September 9, runs until January 3, 2016.
