Known for her long-term projects and her sensitive portraiture, often focusing on children and adolescents, Dijkstra is to be awarded with SEK1,000,000 (approximately £90,000). The award ceremony will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on October 9, 2017, followed by a symposium and large exhibition of her work at the Hasslblad Center in Gothenburg.
The Hasselblad Foundation was established in 1979 under the terms of the last will and testament of Erna and Victor Hasselblad, with its annual international award for outstanding achievements in photography is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.
Writing of her body of work, Duncan Forbes, Chair of the Dury for 2017, writes: “Rineke Dijkstra’s photographs and films speak brilliantly to the intricacy of the portrait image: its embodiment in time; its capacity to reveal history; the contingency of the act of exchange between sitter, photographer and spectator; and, ultimately, photography’s revelation of the self. At a moment when the portrait image dissipates itself in an economy of narcissism and fractal celebrity, Dijkstra reminds us of the photographic portrait’s public potential.”