Montreal-born photographer Benoit Aquin wins $100K prize
Last Updated: Friday, October 31, 2008 | 9:37 AM ET
CBC News
Benoit Aquin's Chinese Dust Bowl images, including this untitled photo, won him the inaugural Prix Pictet for environmental photography. (Prix Pictet)Canadian photographer Benoit Aquin has won the inaugural edition of an international prize celebrating excellence in environmental photography.
Organizers of the first-ever Prix Pictet announced Aquin as the winner of the prize — worth approximately $103,000 Cdn — Thursday evening at a ceremony in Paris.
The Montreal-born Aquin was cited for The Chinese Dust Bowl, a series of images captured in Northern China, where former fertile farmland has been transformed into a haze- and dust-covered arid desert.
Calling the win "a real honour, especially when judged against such a prestigious short list," Aquin also praised the establishment of the prize itself.
"The Prix Pictet validates environmental photography as a subject both from a photo-journalism and an artistic point of view, bringing these different disciplines together in one competition to explore globally significant environmental issues," he said in accepting his prize.
"My series The Chinese Dust Bowl shows just what happens when we mismanage the environment. These issues should not just be seen in the context of one country, they are global issues. They affect us all. And as a global population, we must solve them."
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who presented Aquin his prize, paid tribute to all of this year's participants.
"Each artist has addressed the environmental and social challenges we face in their own personal way. The result is a series of powerful images which seeks to confront us with the scale of the threat we face and to inspire governments, businesses — and all of us as individuals — to step up to the challenge and support change for a sustainable world," he said.
Sponsored by Swiss bank Pictet et Cie, the Prix Pictet is open by nomination alone. For the first edition, more than 200 photographers hailing from 43 countries were nominated but only 18 made the short list.
Aquin's series, images by fellow Canadians Edward Burtynsky and Robert Polidori as well as the 15 other finalists, are on display in Paris, with the exhibition also slated to tour other cities around the globe.
