© Alexis Anice
Ana Elisa Sotelo, winner of the 2024
Thinking Sustainability Prize
07/11/2024 – Paris
The inaugural Thinking Sustainability Prize was awarded to Peruvian artist Ana Elisa Sotelo at the ceremony held on 7 November at Reid Hall, part of Columbia University in Paris and home to the Institute for Ideas & Imagination.
Her Portraits of the Multiverse series wins awards : a dialogue between photography and embroidery
Nature and human interaction with the natural world are central themes in her work. Her series, Portraits of the Multiverse, presents a dialogue between photography and embroidery. The collaboration with Peruvian craftswoman Sadith Silvano helped create this dialogue between the worlds of the visible and the invisible, underlining the profound link between the Amazon, its inhabitants and their ancestral art.
© Alexis Anice
Rules of the Thinking Sustainability Prize
Ana Elisa Sotelo, representing South America, was chosen from five other finalists: Irene Barlian (Asia), Adam Ferguson (Oceania), Maya Goded (North America), Pierrot Men (Africa) and Mónica de Miranda (Europe).
The finalists and all the candidates for the Thinking Sustainability Prize had been selected beforehand by 18 international judges. Each photographer, from the continent he or she represented, was asked to nominate 3 photographers from the same continent. In all, 54 entries were received, from which the members of the jury had to choose their favourite candidate by continent and then, in a second phase, vote for the winner of their choice from among the 6 finalists (the Americas being divided into two continents: North and South).
The winner, Ana Elisa Sotelo, was presented by Sofia Dourron, art historian and curator (Argentina).
© Ana Elisa Sotelo & Sadith Silvano, Portraits of the Multiverse