Erik Kessels shortlisted for the 2016 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

The 2016 shortlist for the annual Deutsche Börse photography prize has been announced. The four artists nominated for the £30,000 prize established by The Photographers’ Gallery are Laura El-Tantawy, Trevor Paglen, Tobias Zielony and co-founder of Kesselskramer Erik Kessels.

This year’s shortlisted photographers largely engage with contemporary politics and social issues, including identity, migration, surveillance and personal loss. Their work will be exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery from April 2016 before being shown at the Deutsche Börse headquarters in Germany.

Dutch photographer and art director Erik Kessels is shortlisted for his poignant exhibition Unfinished Father at Fotografia Europea in Italy. The exhibition, which we featured on It’s Nice That earlier this year, pairs a half-assembled Fiat 500 with photographs of car parts taken by his father, who was a passionate restorer of cars before suffering from a stroke.

American photographer Trevor Paglen is nominated for his exhibition The Octopus looking at drones, data collection and mass surveillance.

Laura El-Tantawy is shortlisted for her self-published photobook In the Shadow of the Pyramids, made up of photographs of the events leading up to the January revolution in Cairo combined with old family photographs and witness accounts of protestors.

Tobias Zielony is nominated for The Citizen, which portrays the lives of African refugees and activists living in Europe, and was exhibited as part of the German Pavilion presentation at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Their work will be exhibited at the Photographers’ Gallery from 16 April until 26 June 2016, with the winner announced in May 2016.