In Photos: “Real life is not black and white” – Polaroid x Magnum Open Call winners

Polaroid and Magnum Photos have announced the 10 winners for their 2024 joint Open Call competition, whose work will be exhibited at the Paris Photo Fair this weekend (November 7-10).

Announced in August, the joint competition from the instant analogue camera company and historic photography agency called upon emerging photographers from across the world to examine the theme Real life is not black and white.

With our surroundings and daily interactions increasingly becoming digitalised, virtual and artificial, Open Call participants were encouraged to explore “Imperfectionism” to examine the true nature of human connection. The movement is based on the idea that digital technology – and its instant transfer of information – has become too powerful and too slick to truly reflect an imperfect world.

The 10 winning photographers are Jakub Stanek, Jaír Fernando Coll, Maria Beatriz de Vilhena, Mengwen Cao, D. M. Terblanche, Mohamed Hassan, Stefan Pavic, Aleruchi Kinika, Natela Grigalashvil and Jed Bacason.

Each of the artists captured different themes relating to their own stories and experiences of human connection, including Stanek’s personal exploration of fatherhood and masculinity with his 10 year old son, and Vilhena’s search of identity growing up along the border of Portugal and Spain.

Stanek says: “My project is a personal journey into the depths of fatherhood, where I strive to understand why, despite my full commitment to my son’s life, the system still perceives me as a secondary parent solely because of my gender. I question why fathers are so often marginalised and what societal mechanisms contribute to this perception.

“Collaborating with my 10-year-old son, I am working to restore his childhood, which was brutally interrupted by dramatic events, and to create a new visual language that challenges and reconstructs the image of fatherhood in today’s world,” he continues. “This project immerses me in emotions – from frustration and helplessness to depression – and allows me to reflect on how these feelings shape my relationship with my child.”

Vilhena says: “This is a project about identity, memory, and the geography in between. I am investigating my roots along the Portuguese-Spanish border in a rural and pagan backdrop. I retraced familiar footsteps, searching for traces, a common geography, and the characteristics of this ancient territory.

“This story is part of a longer narrative, about family myths and tales, and the starting point of this investigation is my great-grandfather, the last family member born in Galicia. From his family's farm, he saw the river, and on the other side Portugal, so he decided to leave at age 14 never to return. I was only there once, as a child, in a failed attempt to reconnect with the family. I returned now with my parents, only to see the farm sold, and no more traces besides the family nameplate on the cemetery.”

The Open Call received 2,101 entries from over 100 countries, with the 10 winners receiving mentorship from Magnum photographers Enri Canaj, Jim Goldberg and Newsha Tavakolian, as well as a Polaroid’s high-end instant camera the I-2, which features manual controls and the sharpest lens on a Polaroid camera.

The Polaroid x Magnum Open Call 2024 winners, Real life is not black and white, will be on view at Paris Photo Fair, Grand Palais, between November 7-10, or via the online exhibition at Polaroid’s official website.

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