Ingrid Pollard Wins 2024 Hasselblad Award

Ingrid Pollard on March 8 was named the winner of the 2024 Hasselblad Award. The prize, which includes 2 million Swedish kronor (US $196,000) and a Hasselblad camera, is considered the world’s top honor given in recognition of a living photographer. Past recipients include Nan Goldin, Miyako Ishiuchi, Graciela Iturbide, Alfredo Jaar, Cindy Sherman, Dayanita Singh, Carrie Mae Weems, and Wolfgang Tillmans. Pollard will receive the award in a ceremony to take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on October 11; that same day, an exhibition of her work will open at the Hasselblad Center, accompanied by a publication.

“Ingrid Pollard uses photography to question deeply engrained social and cultural constructs behind race, identity, community, and gender,” said the foundation in its citation of Pollard. “Her work reveals subtle and starkly evident injustices through her engagement with the British landscape, iconography, and identity, as well as challenging the medium of photography and its history.” The foundation lauded Pollard for having “consistently engaged with colonial history and how it continues to impact society, both in her artistic practice and as an educator in photography,” noting that she has had “a profound impact on younger generations of artists and thinkers.”

Born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1953, Pollard at the age of four emigrated with her family to London, where she was raised. Often combining portraiture, found archival material, objects, and text to produce complex installations, she investigates themes of race and otherness through a practice embracing photography, media, and research. She first gained wide recognition in the 1980s with several photographic series portraying Black people in the English landscape and exploring issues of nationalism, stereotyping, nostalgia, and belonging. In the early 2000s, she began researching the British tradition of naming pubs “Black Boy”; the project yielded a book and an exhibition on the topic. Pollard was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2022 and in 2023 was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her contributions to the field of art.

“Receiving the Hasselblad Award is a great honor,” said Pollard in a statement. “It comes at a point in my life when I’m quite mature and it gives me an opportunity to support younger photographers and researchers, which I intend to do. I wish for the award to extend beyond myself.”