Announcing the 2025 Winners of The V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography
Today the V&A announces the winners of the 2025 V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography, the third iteration of the museum’s open call prize which identifies, supports and champions the talent of global female photographers. The four recipients of the Prize will each receive a bursary of £2,000 and will exhibit their work in a group show at the Copeland Gallery, London, as part of the Peckham 24 festival programme, south London’s vibrant week-long contemporary photography festival. The exhibition runs from 16-25 May 2025.
This year’s submissions represented an exciting and diverse approach to global contemporary photographic practice, with artists demonstrating innovative and creative responses to the Prize theme of ‘Unity’. Emerging and established photographers from countries spanning Latin America, Europe, MENA and South Asia submitted strong visuals which explore how communities, individuals, and even nature come together to heal, reconcile, and find peaceful resolution.
The 2025 Prize winners were selected by the V&A’s external selection committee, co-chaired by Fiona Rogers, the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography at the V&A, and Vivienne Gamble, co-Founder of Peckham 24. They were joined by Dr Charmaine Toh, Senior Curator, International Art (Photography) at Tate, Thyago Nogueira, Head of the Contemporary Photography Department at Instituto Moreira Salles in Brazil, and the award-winning British artist Gillian Wearing.
Of the winners, the committee said: ‘We are delighted to announce such a diverse and talented group of global artists as the winners of the third edition of the V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography. Each artist represents a bold interpretation of contemporary photographic practice and conceptual responses to the Prize theme, with a strong focus on community building. Their striking artistic ‘interventions’ demonstrate photography’s ability to expand beyond the two dimensional and convey empathy and sensitivity.’
The Prize is part of the V&A’s Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, which amplifies the voices of women, celebrates diversity and promotes equality in the arts. It has been made possible by the generous support of Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and The Parasol Foundation Trust. The Foundation actively supports women to achieve their potential in science, health, heritage and the arts.
About the artists
‘Jess Shimmering’ by Morgan Levy, 2022.
Morgan Levy is an American artist based in Brooklyn, USA. Their ongoing series ‘Spark of a Nail’ combines performance, staged photography and documentary approaches to explore the contribution of women and non-binary individuals to labour and the workforce. Inspired by canonical 20th century images of industry in America (which historically overlooked minority groups), and feminist photographic practices from the 1970s onwards, Levy works in partnership with her collaborators, offering both agency and empowerment in self-representation. Through a queer lens, these emotive photographs disrupt traditional narratives of hypermasculine work environments, and balanced with images of rest and care, provide an important alternative archive of representation.
‘Arifa Bano’ by Spandita Malik, 2023.
Photographic transfer print on khadi, zardozi and gota-patti embroidery, beadwork, mirror work.
In ‘Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance’, artist Spandita Malik continues her work within rural women’s communities in her home country of India. Against a backdrop of gendered violence, Malik works with the women to capture intimate, self-directed portraits which she prints onto local cloth, echoing Ghandi’s khadi and India’s fight for independence. The women then add delicate embroidery, shaping the ways they wish to be seen or obscured. Malik says that together the women are ‘enmeshing themselves in a stronger fabric of resistance, one stitch at a time.’
‘Stranger Fruit’ by Tshepiso Moropa, 2025.
Collage on Fabriano Paper.
Tshepiso Moropa is a collage artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rooted in her cultural heritage, ‘Ditoro’ (meaning ‘dreams’ in the SeTswana language) transcends the tradition of small scale, crafted collages to create large, immersive installations inspired by the unconscious mind. Drawing on archival images from Africa alongside the artist’s personal photographs, Moropa deconstructs then reconstructs fragments of history using collage techniques, weaving together new and imagined identities in a celebration of African and diasporic storytelling.
Untitled, from the ongoing series ‘Beirut, Recurring Dream’ by Tanya Traboulsi, 2021 – ongoing.
Tanya Traboulsi is a photographer based in Beirut, Lebanon. Born to an Austrian mother and a Lebanese father, Traboulsi’s work explores themes relating to belonging, memory and the concept of home. Shaped by her experiences and dual identity, ‘Beirut, Recurring Dream’ is a personal exploration of her city and the weight it holds in both her memory and collective history. Combining her photographs with her family’s visual archive, Traboulsi connects past to present, creating a new archive which highlights the profound contradictions which define post-war Beirut.
Additional Reading
More information on the V&A Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project can be found at here
About Peckham 24
Peckham 24 is a not-for-profit festival established in 2016 by curator Vivienne Gamble and artist Jo Dennis. With a focus on supporting new talent and experimental artists working with photography, the festival creates a vibrant takeover of a number of warehouse and gallery spaces across Copeland Park and Bussey Building in the heart of Peckham’s artistic scene.
About the co-chairs of the selection committee
Fiona Rogers is the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography at the V&A. She was previously Director of Photography & Operations for Webber, a photographic agency and gallery with offices in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Prior to Webber she worked for Magnum Photos in a variety of roles, rising to Chief Operations Officer where she was responsible for running the agency and designing and implementing strategies in collaboration with the CEO. She is the Founder of Firecracker, an online platform and annual grant supporting women and artists.
Vivienne Gamble is an independent curator of contemporary photography. She is the Founder and Director of Seen Fifteen gallery in Peckham where she has been running a dynamic programme of exhibitions since 2015. She is the Artistic Director of Peckham 24 festival which she co-founded with the artist Jo Dennis in 2016. Over the course of five editions, she has grown the festival from a grass-roots idea into a highly anticipated date in the UK photography calendar. She is also currently an Associate Lecturer on the MA and BA Photography programmes at London College of Communication (UAL).
About the selection committee
Dr Charmaine Toh (Singapore) is Senior Curator, International Art (Photography) at Tate. Her research focuses on alternative histories of photography and art in Southeast Asia. She was previously Senior Curator at National Gallery Singapore where she curated Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia (2022), the first survey of the history of photography in the region. Before that, she was Programme Director at Objectifs: Centre for Photography and Film where she initiated a new exhibition and research programme. Charmaine co-curated the Singapore Biennale (2013) and is the author of Imagining Singapore: Pictorial Photography from the 1950s to the 1970s (Brill, 2023).
Thyago Nogueira (Brazil) is the head of the Contemporary Photography Department at Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS), Brazil, and founding editor of ZUM photography magazine, published by IMS. He has curated numerous exhibitions such as Daido Moriyama: A retrospective (2022), Miguel Rio Branco: Dreamt Words... (2022), Claudia Andujar: The Yanomami Struggle (2018), Claudia Andujar: In the place of the other (2014), William Eggleston: The American Color (2015), Body Against Body: the dispute of images, from photography to live transmission (2017), Mauro Restiffe: São Paulo, Beyond Reach (2014) and Rosângela Rennó: #RioUtópico (2017). He has guest edited Aperture magazine dedicated to São Paulo photography (2014), chaired the 2020 Hasselblad Award, and organised the Offside project with Magnum during Brazil’s World Cup.
Gillian Wearing (UK) is a contemporary artist who investigates the tensions between public and private, fiction and reality, and the relationship between the artist and the viewer. Her performative photographs and films explore personal revelations, private fantasies, and psychological trauma. Drawing on theatrical techniques, fly-on-the-wall documentaries, and reality TV, her work explores public personas and private lives in an investigation of the way in which we present ourselves to the external world. Wearing employs prosthetic masks, voice dubbing, altered photographs, in her portraits of herself, individuals, and groups. Notable series of work by Wearing include Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say (1992 – 93), in which the artist asked strangers to "write what they were thinking, then photographed them holding the sign." Born in 1963 in Birmingham, England, she moved to London in 1983, she studied at Chelsea School of Art then Goldsmiths College. In 1997, the artist was the winner of the prestigious Turner Prize for her 60 Minutes Silence (1996). She currently lives and works in London. Today, Wearing's works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Guggenheim, New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., among others.