The European Publishers Award for Photography (EPAP), created by the publishers Actes Sud (France), Blume (Spain), Dewi Lewis Publishing (UK), Kehrer Verlag (The European Publishers Award for Photography (EPAP), created by the publishers Actes Sud (France), Blume (Spain), Dewi Lewis Publishing (UK), Kehrer Verlag (Germany) and Peliti Associati (Italy), rewards a set of photographs with the aim of collecting them in a published book.

The jury, chaired by Klaus Kehrer and with curator and writer Celina Lunsford, plus representatives from other publishers, will meet in March 2013 in Heidelberg to select the recipient of the EPAP 2013.

The competition requires the submission of a substantial, completed and unpublished photographic book project. More information about the award, including the application and information about the entry fee, can be found on the Dewi Lewis publishing website.

The 2012 winner of the EPAP was Alessandro Imbriaco for his project, The Garden, forthcoming from Dewi Lewis. In the work, Imbriaco offers a personal approach to photojournalism, showing how it can address social issues:

“Over the last five years Alessandro Imbriaco has been photographing issues of housing problems in Rome. This has led him to explore the peripheral and hidden spaces of the city.

'The Garden' is one of these places. It is a small swamp next to the Aniene River, under a flyover on the ring road circling the eastern outskirts of Rome. Attempts have been made to protect its flora and fauna by designating the area as a nature reserve, though these efforts have failed and it remains abandoned and with no environmental protection. Yet it has ended protecting other living creatures: Angela, a six-year-old child, was born here and grew up here with her parents Piero, from Sicily, and Luba, from Russia, in a shack under the flyover. They have found sanctuary in the swamp – a safe shelter, hidden from the rest of the city – a different and invisible existence, unimaginable to all those who drive over the flyover every day.” (Text by Bill Kouwenhoven)

Bernard Perrine

Book
Le Jardin
Alessandro Imbriaco
Éditions Actes Sud
80 pages 268x200mm