FRIDA ORUPABO. SPECTRUM INTERNATIONALER PREIS FÜR FOTOGRAFIE DER STIFTUNG NIEDERSACHSEN

In the organizer's words:

The Lower Saxony Foundation is awarding the Norwegian artist Frida Orupabo the prestigious SPECTRUM International Prize for Photography. The prize, endowed with 15,000 euros, is combined with an exhibition of her work at the Sprengel Museum Hannover and an accompanying publication. The exhibition, which brings together 32 works from 2018 to 2024, some of which are large-format, will run from April 5 to July 20, 2025. The award ceremony will take place on April 4, 2025 at 7 p.m. together with the exhibition opening.

Frida Orupabo receives the award for her photographic collages, which address issues of identity, racism, gender and the sexualized exploitation and objectification of Black bodies in a special way.

Lavinia Francke, Secretary General of the Lower Saxony Foundation, which awards the prize, emphasizes: "The SPECTRUM International Photography Prize of the Lower Saxony Foundation is one of the few internationally outstanding awards for artistic photography. All previous SPECTRUM prizewinners, including Adrian Sauer, Zanele Muholi, Fiona Tan, Rineke Dijkstra, John Baldessari and Thomas Struth, have made an important contribution to the still young history of artistic photography with their very different photographic positions and have thus advanced the formation of a canon in their field of art. Frida Orupabo complements the series of previous award winners in an outstanding way by addressing pressing social issues."

The jury justified its decision as follows "Frida Orupabo plays a very special role in contemporary photography in her examination of the painful flaws in visual traditions and her complex pictorial inventions aimed at enlightenment, in which the violence of traditional visual regimes is brought to light. The jury's decision in favor of Frida Orupabo expands the spectrum of previous SPECTRUM prizewinners by another extremely striking, artistically outstanding position."

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Frida Orupabo, born in Norway in 1986, lives and works in Oslo. Originally working as a sociologist, she began collecting images from the internet and publishing them on Instagram under @nemiepeba. She later translated her digital work into physical forms, including photomontages, sculptures and videos. Her works are represented in renowned collections and are exhibited internationally. Her artistic practice combines feminist and postcolonial theories with digital and material forms of expression. She uses historical photographs of colonial violence and combines them with literary quotations to challenge existing ways of seeing. Her works such as Big Girl I & II take up theories of Black women's self-empowerment, while works such as Cloud of Confusion show fragmented images without context and open up alternative narratives.

Curator Inka Schube, Sprengel Museum Hannover, says: "Frida Orupabo analyzes and dismantles the violent image archives of history and reassembles them - not as a reconstruction, but as a radical act of self-empowerment. Her sharp-edged, mostly sculptural collages break up dominant visual regimes and create new, multi-layered narratives. It is only logical that her works are now being shown at the Sprengel Museum Hannover: like Kurt Schwitters once did, she uses collage as a form of resistance and expression - but expands this approach with an astute reflection on colonial and racist pictorial traditions."

Curated by Inka Schube

SPECTRUM International Prize for Photography of the Lower Saxony Foundation

The SPECTRUM Prize is awarded every two years by the Lower Saxony Foundation. It honors outstanding contemporary photographic artists.

JURY

Lavinia Francke (Stiftung Niedersachsen), Gabriele Schor (SAMMLUNG VERBUND, Vienna), Inka Schube (Sprengel Museum Hannover), Christoph Wiesner (Director of the photo festival "Les Rencontres Internationales de la photographie d'Arles"), Franciska Zólyom (Director of the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst (GfZK), Leipzig)

ARTIST'S BOOK

FRIDA ORUPABO
ON LIES, SECRETS AND SILENCE

A special bilingual edition of the publication will be published on the occasion of the Hanover exhibition.

With texts by Yuvinka Medina and Owen Martin, Nina Cramer and Mai Takawira, Dr. Portia Malatjie, C. LeClaire, Hilton Als and a greeting by Lavinia Francke. Published by Bonniers Konsthall, Astrup Fearnley Museet and SKIRA, in cooperation with the Lower Saxony Foundation
192 pages, numerous illustrations, 30 euros
Available at the museum box office

The publication is published on the occasion of the exhibition Frida Orupabo: On Lies, Secrets and Silence, which will be shown at Bonniers Konsthall from August 28 to November 10, 2024 and at Astrup Fearnley Museet from February 7 to April 27, 2025. It will also be presented as part of the exhibition for the SPECTRUM - International Photography Prize 2025 of the Lower Saxony Foundation at the Sprengel Museum Hannover, which will take place from April 5 to July 20, 2025.