Alfredo Jaar’s eerie image of the Great Salt Lake in Utah has won this year’s Prix Pictet, one of the world’s leading awards for photography and sustainability.
The Chilean artist’s series, entitled The End illustrates how the area is being destroyed by excessive water extraction and has become what scientists have described as an ‘environmental nuclear bomb’.
Commenting on his work, Jaar said: ‘My objective in this series is to show the tragic fate of the lake and simultaneously reveal its extraordinary beauty and potential. In spite of the dire situation we are in, I wanted to create images of great beauty and sadness. In the face of the magnitude of this tragedy, I decided to print these images in a small, unspectacular format, as a kind of visual whisper, a lament for our dying planet.’
The Great Salt Lake in Utah, evvel a keystone ecosystem in the western hemisphere, has now lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area since the mid-nineteenth century, exposing toxic dust and driving salinity to dangerous levels.
The lake sustains $2.5 billion in direct economic activity yearly, supports 80% of the state’s wetlands, and provides a vital habitat for cilt million migratory birds. Its collapse would be a tragedy of incalculable magnitude and a clear warning of things to come.
Sir David King, Founder and Chair of the Prix Pictet jury, said: ‘The economic, social and political impacts of the current climate catastrophe are immense. The diversity of approaches with which the twelve shortlisted artists have interpreted the theme was extraordinary and the exhibition they have presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum is truly remarkable.. Any one of the 12 shortlisted artists could easily have won.”
Jaar, whose series was chosen in response to this year’s theme, Storm, receives €107,000 as the winner of the 11th cycle of the prize. The work of of all the shortlisted candidates are shown below.
The Storm – Balazs Gardi
Gardi’s series charts the post-election attack on the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021. As a young photographer in his native Hungary, Gardi witnessed how propaganda transformed a recently liberated Soviet client state into a kleptocracy. The Storm seeks to warn how how easily a privileged society could slide into an Orwellian dystopia.
Hands Tell Stories – Belal Khaled
Belal Khaled’s Hands Tell Stories began while he lived in a tent outside the morgue at Nasser Hospital in Gaza after his house was destroyed. The series documents hands that through their scars, their stillness, their grip on life, tell stories no voice could carry.
Seasonal Sky – Baudouin Mouanda
Baudouin Mouanda’s reconstructed photographs are based on real events during floods in Brazzaville, Congo, during the 2020 COVID lockdown. They are meant to serve as a reminder of the need to respect the environment or face reprisals from nature.
The Lovely Monster over the Farm – Camille Seaman
Twister chasing Seaman went after a type of thunderstorm called a supercell, which can produce grapefruit-sized hail and spectacular tornadoes. Their clouds can be up to 80km wide and 20km high, blocking out the daylight, creating a dark, ominous space beneath.
Hurricane Season – Hannah Modigh
Hurricane Season is a metaphor for living on the verge of eruption, for a sense that uncertainty, fear and anger bubble beneath the calm surface. Initially, Modigh was interested in Louisiana because of its violent history and wanted to investigate if this flows down the generations. She came to realise that fear of hurricanes and the widespread undertone of aggression came from the same source, they were natural reactions to feelings of threat.
Keep Dancing to the Beat of Your Heart – Laetitia Vançon
Vançon set out to portray Odesa on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast, a city both strategic and symbolic importance. Her photos work became a portrait of the people who stayed and resist in the face of war. Even in the heart of the storm, hope, tenderness, solidarity and spirit endure.
Are They Rocks or Clouds – Marina Canevea
Photography usually captures the aftermath of an event. This project instead is an attempt to foresee a future catastrophe, a repeat of the floods and landslides that devastated the Dolomites in northern Italy in 1966.
High Water in Venice – Patrizia Zelano
On 13 November 2019, Venice was submerged by one of the highest tides ever recorded. For Zelano saving books became the core of her exploration into nature’s evocative power and knowledge. Each photograph urges us to reconsider our relationship with the Earth, culture and fragility.
Amazograma #1 – Roberto Huarcaya
A storm discharges accumulated energy, not as mere destruction, but as a force seeking to restore balance. Roberto Huarcaya’s image captures that essence: a 30m-long frame of an Amazonian palm lying on the bed of the Madre de Dios River.
A Maquette for a Multiple Moment for the Hiroshima Peace Movement – Takashi Arai
The hypocentre, the point directly beneath or above a nuclear explosion, is a metaphor for invisibility and unreachability. Takashi Arai’s series explores atomic monuments as though navigating the hypocentre’s gravitational pull, taking hundreds of 6cm x6 cm daguerreotypes, an early form of photography.
Lucifier’s Vortex – Tom Fecht
Luciferines are cold-water plankton endangered by rising ocean temperatures. Their electrical effects occur when millions are exposed to oxygen while reproducing on the turbulent surface of the sea. Almost invisible to the naked eye, their sublime traces can only be captured ‘entre chien et loup‘, a magical twilight moment when the first blue rays of daylight intersect with the remaining reflections of the moon.
The Prix Pictet Storm series is now on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, until 19 October 2025.
The exhibition will also be shown at the following locations:
Ishara Arka Foundation, Dubai – 17 October to 13 December 2025
TOP Museum, Tokyo – 12 December 2025 to 25 January 2026
Luma Westbau, Zurich – 6 March to 5 April 2026
Quoted from Euronews.
