{"id":5548,"date":"2016-09-20T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edition2.lammerhuber.at\/news-en\/helena-schaetzle-beim-alfred-fried-photography-award-2016-fuer-das-friedensbild-des-jahres-2016-ausgezeichnet.html"},"modified":"2020-09-08T11:26:41","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T09:26:41","slug":"peace-photo-of-the-year-2016-title-goes-to-helena-schatzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edition.lammerhuber.at\/en\/news-en\/peace-photo-of-the-year-2016-title-goes-to-helena-schatzle","title":{"rendered":"Peace Photo of the Year 2016 title goes to Helena Sch\u00e4tzle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vienna, 20 September 2016<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 For the fourth time the Austrian parliament hosted the award ceremony of the international photo competition for the best peace image of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The award is named after Austrian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Alfred Fried, with the main prize worth 10 000 euros<\/strong>. It went to German photographer Helena Sch\u00e4tzle<\/strong> for “Devoted to Life”<\/a>,<\/strong> a portrait series of holocaust survivors in Israel. The international jury praised Sch\u00e4tzle\u2019s sensitive approach to \u201ccapture late moments of consolation, tenderness and intimacy in the lives of those who have been stalked by a horrific history, late moments of happiness in a traumatized life after survival\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her welcome address,\u00a0Doris Bures<\/strong>, President of the Austrian National Council, speaking to a 250 strong audience, recognized the Alfred Fried Award as \u201can event which is gaining significance\u201d in times in which \u201cthe longing for peace is growing all over the world\u201d. Bures said it was \u201cinfinitely painful\u201d that the international community still has not managed to ensure that the war in Syria is ended.

As in the previous year, the keynote speech was held by a current Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Tunisian\u00a0Abdessattar Ben Moussa<\/strong>, President of the Tunisian Human Rights League, which received the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, demanded to make peace \u201ca human right\u201d. A \u201cculture of peace\u201d should become an \u201ceducational subject in all the schools\u201d. However, today the countries all over the world are still spending more on wars than on peace. Not least the veto right conferred to the Security Council of the United Nations would prevent peaceful solutions.

On behalf of the\u00a0International Press Institute,<\/strong>\u00a0Mazen Darwish<\/strong>, a Syrian activist for the freedom of the press and of speech, commemorated journalists and photographers killed on duty in the past year. Accused of terrorism for his reports on human rights violations in his home country and only released from Assad\u2019s prisons in 2015 after international protests, he reminded the audience that at least 69 journalists lost their lives between September 2015 and September 2016. It was those who had tried to bring home the stories of the victims of wars. Historians usually pay tribute to the victors. However, it was more important to show the other side.

This year\u2019s jury was headed by\u00a0Rolf Nobel<\/strong>, long-standing professor of photography at the University for Applied Sciences, Hannover. In his eulogy he stressed that \u201cif it is the task of a medium like photography to present all themes of human existence, then it is extremely important to balance the floods of war images with images of peace. All the greater my pleasure then that the\u00a0Alfred Fried Photography Award\u00a0<\/strong>has developed such a great appeal in just four years\u201c.

Lois Lammerhuber,<\/strong>\u00a0publisher, photographer and initiator of the Alfred Fried Award, pointed out that \u201cwith the invention of smartphone photography, a cultural revolution has set in that introduces a completely new era of understanding the world. And this understanding is being communicated non-verbally, via images. If, with the simple question \u201cWhat Does Peace Look Like<\/strong>?\u201d, we succeed in planting a seed of visual reflection in the hearts and minds of people, then this photo competition can contribute to make the world just a little bit better.

Entries to the\u00a0Alfred Fried Photography Award 2016<\/strong>\u00a0ran to a total of\u00a016 883<\/strong>\u00a0pictures by photographers from 127 countries. The jury included photographers, photo journalists, newspaper editors, representatives of photographic associations and of UNESCO from Austria, Germany, France, Norway, Finland, China and the US. In addition to the main prize for\u00a0Helena Sch\u00e4tzle<\/strong>, they awarded four\u00a0Alfred Fried Photography Award Medals<\/strong>\u00a0to:

Dutch photographer\u00a0Chris de Bode<\/strong>, for\u00a0I Have a Dream<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0a series on dreams of the future by children in countries like Haiti, Liberia, Uganda, Mexico and India.

Kashmir-born photographer\u00a0Altaf Qadri<\/strong>\u00a0for\u00a0School For The Less Fortunate<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0a black-and-white report about an improvised school for the children of the poor under a bridge in New Delhi.

Uzbek photographer\u00a0Boris Register<\/strong>\u00a0for\u00a0Eclipse Time<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0a report on everyday life in the Russian provinces.

And to Turkish photographer\u00a0Leyla Emektar<\/strong>\u00a0for\u00a0Peace And Tranquillity<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0the painted and photographed image of the dream of a carefree childhood.

Presenting the prize to\u00a0Helena Sch\u00e4tzle<\/strong>, jury member\u00a0Peter-Matthias Gaede<\/strong>\u00a0recalled that he had published another work by Sch\u00e4tzle during his time as editor-in-chief of\u00a0GEO<\/em>\u00a0magazine. Born in 1983 and now living in Kassel, Sch\u00e4tzle studied visual communication at the art school there from 2004 to 2009, going on to take a course in photo journalism at the University of Applied Sciences in Hannover. She is a member of\u00a0laif<\/em>\u00a0photo agency, works as a freelancer for magazines, newspapers and human rights organizations, taught photography in India for several years and has won multiple awards, including the\u00a0Canon Profifoto F\u00f6rderpreis<\/em>\u00a0and one from\u00a0Stiftung Buchkunst<\/em>. Gaede said that what convinced the jury about Sch\u00e4tzle\u2019s work was \u201cthe sensitivity and empathy of the photographer in capturing the emotions of survivors of the Shoah in her pictures\u201d. Her photographs expressed the caution and at the same time the genuine interest of the young German as she entered a delicate area; one could see at once \u201cher affection for the holocaust survivors and the affection she received from them\u201d.

The\u00a0Peace Image of the Year 2016<\/strong>\u00a0from Sch\u00e4tzle\u2019s Israel series will be exhibited for a year above the entrance to the plenary of the Austrian parliament.

The winning images with captions:<\/strong>
Helena Sch\u00e4tzle, Germany: Devoted to Life<\/a>
Boris Register, Russian Federation: Eclipse Time<\/a>
Chris de Bode, Netherlands: I Have a Dream<\/a>
Leyla Emektar, Turkey: Peace and Tranquility<\/a>
Altaf Qadri, India: School For The Less Fortunate<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n