Lebanese-American photographer Walid Raad wins Hasselblad Award

Mar 8, 2011, 10:49 GMT

Stockholm - Lebanese-American photographer Walid Raad was Tuesday named the winner of the 2011 Hasselblad Award for his innovative work on documentary photography, archive and history.

In his winning project, The Atlas Group, Raad explored Lebanon's contemporary history. His approach resulted in 'innovative methods of approaching the imagery of war and the way political and social conflict can be explored in art,' the five-member international jury said.

Notebooks, films, videotapes, photographs and other items were used in the project.

Raad was to receive the photography award, worth 1 million kronor (150,000 dollars), along with a diploma and a gold medal at a ceremony in New York, where he lives and works.

An exhibition of Raad's work was scheduled for November 11 at the Museum of Art in the Swedish west coast city of Gothenburg.

Last year's award was given to French photographer and artist Sophie Calle.

The Hasselblad award was named after Victor Hasselblad (1906-1978), the inventor of the Hasselblad cameras that have been used in NASA space programmes and by innumerable famous photographers.

Former Hasselblad Award winners include Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, Richard Avedon, Sebastiao Salgado, Hiroshi Hamaya, Susan Meiselas, Ernst Haas, Irving Penn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, and Lennart Nilsson.

More information can be found on: www.hasselbladfoundation.org.

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