Photography is ubiquitous. It shapes the way we see, remember and understand the world. From the everyday shots on phones to the carefully considered works shown in galleries and museums, photography has the rare capacity to be both universal and deeply personal. It documents, testifies, mourns and celebrates. It is also one of the most powerful mediums we have for confronting the challenges of our time. This is why festivals and prizes dedicated to the photographic image continue to grow in cultural significance. The Sony World Photography Awards, which attract hundreds of thousands of submissions from across the globe, are a testament to the democratic power of the medium. Les Rencontres d’Arles, founded in 1970, transforms a Provençal city into the heartbeat of international photography each summer. Meanwhile our own Aesthetica Art Prize demonstrates the reach of contemporary practice, drawing together work across moving image, installation and photography, asking key questions about how we think about our surroundings through the lens of visual communication.
Amongst these cultural landmarks, the Prix Pictet occupies a singular position. Founded in 2008 by the Geneva-based Pictet Group, it has become recognised as the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. Each cycle is dedicated to a theme that resonates with our most urgent environmental and social concerns. The award is independently governed and judged by an international panel of experts, from curators and critics to scientists and writers. Over the years, it has celebrated some of the most compelling and socially conscious photographers working today. Nadav Kander’s Yangtze: The Long River, Richard Mosse’s images of conflict in Congo rendered in infrared, and Gauri Gill’s works with rural communities in India speak to the power of photography to be aesthetically striking and politically vital.
This year marks the 11th cycle of the Prix Pictet, with the theme Storm. The shortlist of 12 photographers was announced in July at the Théâtre Antique in Arles, during the opening week of the festival that remains photography’s most influential stage. The scope of the shortlisted projects demonstrates not only the global reach of the award but the myriad ways in which the storm, both literal and metaphorical, manifests in our contemporary condition. Takashi Arai methodically circles monuments tied to nuclear history, creating hundreds of delicate daguerreotypes he calls “micromonuments.” Marina Caneve, returning to the Dolomites of her childhood, imagines future landslides and floods, creating images that oscillate between documentary and poetic speculation. Tom Fecht turns his lens to luciferines, bioluminescent plankton whose fragile glow is imperilled by rising sea temperatures.
Balazs Gardi’s series places us in Washington, DC, on 6 January 2021, in the fumes and rubber bullets of the attack on the US Capitol. Roberto Huarcaya collaborates with a storm itself, as lightning sears the image of an Amazonian palm onto a 30-metre roll of photosensitive paper. Alfredo Jaar photographs Utah’s Great Salt Lake, now so depleted that scientists call it an “environmental nuclear bomb.” Belal Khaled, displaced by the war in Gaza, documents hands – scarred, searching, still – that tell stories “no voice could carry.” Hannah Modigh’s Hurricane Season captures Louisiana’s atmospheres of latent eruption, while Baudouin Mouanda reconstructs Brazzaville’s 2020 floods with those who lived through them. Camille Seaman chases American supercells, capturing clouds that span 80 kilometres, blocking out the daylight and creating ominous, sublime spaces beneath. Laetitia Vançon pays tribute to the resilience of Odesa amidst war, while Patrizia Zelano photographs encyclopaedias and texts salvaged from Venice’s record high tide in 2019, transforming them into fragile monuments of knowledge.
Commenting on the shortlist, Sir David King, Chair of the jury, remarked: “In many ways our planet is a more dangerous place to live than ever before. The impacts of the climate catastrophe abound. Fires, floods, heat and drought are killing and injuring people and destroying both infrastructure and precious ecosystems. Already, parts of our planet are unliveable, and all the indications are that more will follow. The economic, social and political impacts of these changes are immense. There could not have been a more timely moment for the Prix Pictet to invite nominations on the theme of Storm.” He went on to add, “Rarely has the jury reviewed so many nominations of such outstanding artistic merit. Arriving at a shortlist of twelve was a considerable challenge. There were many portfolios that could easily have made the list, but in the end, we selected a group of artists who have responded to the problems posed by the various storms we all face with skill and ingenuity.”
The exhibition of the shortlisted artists will open at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, with admission free. The winner of the 100,000 Swiss Franc prize will be announced on Thursday 25 September, during the opening event at the V&A, while the exhibition opens to the public on Friday 26 September before travelling internationally. A book published by Hatje Cantz will accompany the show, featuring the shortlisted work alongside essays by historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and economist Mariana Mazzucato, and a conversation between Michael Benson and renowned photojournalist Don McCullin.
The choice of Storm as a theme is more than timely; it feels inevitable. Storms are at once natural phenomena and apt metaphors for our present. They embody volatility, rupture and threat, but also transformation and renewal. They speak to environmental collapse, political instability and social unrest. They remind us of both the destructive and generative forces that shape our world. Photography, with its ability to capture fleeting moments and suggest larger narratives, makes these forces visible.
From Venice’s floodwaters and Odesa’s resilience to Louisiana’s charged stillness to the fragile glow of ocean plankton, the shortlisted works bear witness to the turbulence of our age. They also remind us that even during storms – whether meteorological or political – there remains the possibility of endurance, defiance and hope. The Prix Pictet continues to demonstrate that photography can be both art and warning, mirror and catalyst. As the exhibition opens in London, it will not simply display images but pose urgent questions about how we see, how we live and how we navigate the storms of our time.
Prix Pictet: Storm is at V&A, London from Friday 26 September: vam.ac.uk
Words: Anna Müller
Image Credits:
1. Chez la marchande de legumes (At the Vegetable Seller’s), photograph, by Baudouin Mouanda, 2020, from the series ‘Le ciel de saison (Seasonal Sky)’ © Image courtesy of the artist.
2. The End, photograph, by Alfredo Jaar, 2025, from the series ‘The End’ © Image courtesy of the artist. 3. The Lovely Monster over the Farm, 19:15 CST, Lodgepole, Nebraska, 22 June 2012 , photograph, by Camille Seaman, 2012, from the series ‘The Big Cloud’ © Image courtesy of the artist.
4. Keep Dancing to the Beat of Your Heart, photograph, by Laetitia Vançon, 2022, from the series ‘Tribute to Odesa’ © Image courtesy of the artist.
5. LUCIFER’S VORTEX (Luciferine #2433), photograph, by Tom Fecht, 2020, from the series ‘Luciferines – entre chien et loup (Luciferines – Between Dog and Wolf)’ © Courtesy Tom Fecht and Laffanour I Galerie Downtown, Paris.
