Harri Pälviranta wins the Descubrimientos PHE Award for his series Personas Golpeadas

A Finnish photographer wins Descubrimientos PHE with a powerful series of images that offer an uncompromising vision of raw violence in public places

The jury, made up of 20 experts who viewed all the entries and headed up by Dominique Charlet, Chema Conesa, Alberto de Juan and Ute Eskildsen, rewarded the dramatic quality and strong sense of reality expressed in each of the photographs in the series

The jury also granted honorary mentions to Bjørn Sterri and Anoek Steketee in recognition of their innovative approach and tireless experimentation in the field of photography

The competition attracted close on 800 portfolios from photographers in over 40 countries.

Madrid, 11 June 2007. This portfolio viewing event rewards originality, interest and coherence in the works presented. The prize - a solo show at PHotoEspaña 2008 – was awarded to Harri Pälviranta (Finland, 1971) in recognition of his project Personas Golpeadas (People Beaten), a powerful photographic portrait of street violence.

Harri Pälviranta, winner of Descubrimientos

With the Descubrimientos Award, PHotoEspaña 2007 recognises the outstanding talent of Harri Pälviranta amongst all the artists who entered projects in the portfolio viewing section of the festival. The photographer said he was “very grateful and surprised” as he had never participated in an event like PHotoEspaña and until now had only made up his mind to continue with his doctoral thesis.

Pälviranta (Finland, 1971) has a master’s degree in art, media and political sciences from the University of Turku, plus a doctorate in photography from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. He has held a number of exhibitions of his work at venues such as the Gallery Sygne Vad in Copenhagen (2007) and the Fotonauta Gallery of Photography in Barcelona (2006).

With their powerful and incisive direct approach, every photograph in the series Personas Golpeadas depicts violence in such a way that the observer perceives a whole range of sensations. The realism of the photography and the dramatic quality of the theme portrayed are all-enveloping, leaving no observer indifferent.

Honorary mentions for Bjørn Sterri and Anoek Steketee

The jury of Descubrimientos PHE also granted two honorary mentions: to Anoek Steketee for the portfolio En el escenario (On Stage), which focuses on different situations arising in Iran and its complex society, and to Bjørn Sterri, whose series develops the themes of time and ageing, or what he calls the “life cycle”.

Descubrimientos PHE

Descubrimientos PHE, a platform for new photographers, has enabled sixty finalists to share their work with a committee of experts made up of curators, directors of museums, galleries and art centres, publishers and representatives of institutions associated with the medium, via an event that promotes young artists in the professional photography market. The winner of Descubrimientos PHE gets the chance to mount an individual exhibition of his work at PHotoEspaña 2008.

The jury

The jury that granted the Descubrimientos PHE 07 Awards was made up of a committee of experts headed up by Beate Cegielska, the director and curator of the Galleri Image, the oldest gallery in Denmark specialising in photography. The other members were as follows: curator, collector and art dealer Dominique Charlet; the graphic editor of the Spanish daily El Mundo and director of the PhotoBolsillo Collection, Chema Conesa; the director of the Galería Max Estrella in Madrid since 1994, Alberto de Juan; the highly experienced photographic exhibition curator Ute Eskildsen; William Swing; Carles Guerra; Elda Harrington; Mindaugas Kavaliauskas; Iñaki Martínez Antelo; Rebecca McClelland; Alison Nordström; Laura Serani; Barbara Stauss; Anabel Suero de González; Christoph Tannert; Antonio Vela de la Torre; Rhonda Wilson; Wim Van Sinderen and Tim B. Wride.