1° Edition

Gaza: The Book of Destruction

For the debut edition of the award dedicated to the Gaza Strip, the jury—chaired by photographer and film-maker William Klein—selected Kai Wiedenhöfer (1966-2024). Multi-award winning, Arabic-speaking German photographer covered this region and its inhabitants for many years. He often repeated: "without language, a good photograph is impossible”.

Kai Wiedenhöfer

Mona Al-Asqar, 19, injured during an artillery strike on the UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) School in Beit Lahia on January 17, 2009.
© Kai Wiedenhöfer for Fondation Carmignac

Between major and minor conflicts, intense battles and sporadic clashes, blind terrorism and disproportionate repression, too many countries—especially those in the Near and Middle East—live in an almost permanent state of war, whether civil or across territories.

One year after the "Gaza War" (2008-2009), Kai Wiedenhöfer documented the material and human devastation throughout the region. He showed the true face of war: perpetual pain, dull anger and dreadful resignation—with no end in sight.

It was with deep sadness that the Fondation Carmignac learned in January 2024 of his passing.

“It takes courage to go off at age twenty to photograph the people isolated in the Gaza Strip. It takes determination to stay there for 18 months, and then return regularly for another twenty years, despite increasing border controls and constant harassment, until a wall is finally erected to separate the two peoples. It takes both courage and determination to embrace the vocation of in-depth reporting and assume the difficult existence entailed by an activity now unfortunately severely under threat.”
Edouard Carmignac

For six months, from November 2009 to March 2010, Kai Wiedenhöfer carried out extremely meticulous on-site documentary work. Powerful in the tradition of August Sander and detached in the tradition of the “Düsseldorf school”, his frontal images show wounded human beings and destroyed buildings. His report showcases a cruel beauty upon a stretch of barbwired, battered land.

The geometry of his framing, his modest use of colour and his rejection of sensationalism all point to his pessimism about the possibility of reconstruction between living beings or the world at large. Abandonment, sadness and dignity stare out at us, and we are divided between a sense of despair and a respect for the photographer and his vision.