The Körber Photo Award 2007. Balancing Act: Security

23.5. - 26.8.2007

The Körber Foundation

Dialogue and understanding, education and science, integration and commitment, young culture: these are the areas of activity in which the Körber Foundation is active with many of their own projects. For all citizens who do not want keep things as they are, the foundation offers the opportunity for participation and stimulus for their own initiatives.

With their cultural activities the Körber Foundation places emphasis on the promotion of young artists in the field of opera, drama and photography.

For the fifth time, with its Körber Photo Award 2007, the Körber Foundation has invited young photographers to approach a social theme in their own individual pictorial language. Thus, the past four awards developed social portraits on the subjects “Youth” (1999), “Liberty” (2001), “Lifestyle” (2003) and “Phase 3 – How do the Elderly Live” (2005). With “Balancing Act: Security” the participating photographic artists were once again confronted with a topic of great current interest, of individual nature and perception.

With the fifth Körber Photo Award the Körber Foundation returns to the place which the founder Kurt A. Körber in 1989 maintained as a cultural site: The Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

The Körber Photo Award
“Balancing Act: Security“

Photo essays by Anna-Lena Bushart, Boris Eldagsen, Julian Faulhaber, Jan Friese, Oliver Helbig, Wiebke Loeper, Philipp Karl Moritz, Martin Richter, Sabine Schründer, Kalle Singer, Marion Üdema, Jutta Zimmermann.

The dividing line is fine. The growing complexity of all areas of life makes it ever more difficult to make an objective judgement, a rational decision and a well-founded reliable expectation for the future. However, without security the human being cannot develop and too much of it makes him stagnate. What are the inner attitudes and values that make us feel secure so that we can take action? Which external general framework do we need in private and public life? How do individuals and the state define security and what are the citizen’s demands in this fast moving time, which causes so many to feel insecure. Who is responsible for “our” security? What should one think about the claim that a good portion of insecurity is the driving motor for change? Which insecurities does our civilisation create for itself? Which relationship between security and insecurity does our society and the individual need for the balancing act security?

The Körber Photo Award is only open to participants who have been proposed by a nominating jury. For the fifth Körber Photo Award altogether twelve young photographers have been suggested by six approved experts of photography. The members of the nominating jury were:

Prof. Peter Bialobrzeski
Academy of Arts, Bremen

Prof. Hans Hansen
Photographer, Hamburg

Bettina Olf
Springer & Jacoby, Hamburg

Stefan Ostermeier
brand eins, Hamburg

Dr. Ulrich Pohlmann
Photography Collection of the Museum of the City of Munich

Claudia Stein
Photography now, Berlin

Subsequent to the nomination, a project phase lasting six months began in which along with the pictures to be submitted, statements and/or texts on the project experience and reflections on the subject should be developed. Finally, a second judging jury made its decision. The judging jury members were:

Prof. Joachim Brohm
Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig

Stephan Erfurt
C/O Berlin

Prof. F.C. Gundlach
Foundation F.C. Gundlach, Hamburg

Celina Lunsford
The Fotografie Forum International, Frankfurt

Prof. Bernhard Prinz (Vorsitz)
Acadmey of Arts, Kassel

Ingo Taubhorn
House of Photography/The Deichtorhallen Hamburg

Dr. Klaus Wehmeier
The Körber Foundation, Hamburg