July Feature: In conversation Alessandro Cinque, first-time winner of the Sustainability Prize at Sony Photography Awards 2023, Somerset House 14th April – 1st May 2023

Jul 26,2023
By Abundant Art

July Feature: In conversation Alessandro Cinque, first-time winner of the Sustainability Prize at Sony Photography Awards 2023, Somerset House 14th April – 1st May 2023

The Sony Photography Awards 2023 marks the 16th year of the Sony World Photography Awards. This year, the photographs are exhibited across the fantastic galleries of Somerset House. With over 415,000 images from over 200 countries the scale and diversity of this years’ exhibition, combined with its beautiful setting, make it particularly striking.

While the Awards comprises of four competitions, Professional, Open, Youth, and Student, it also has many additional initiatives that seek to invite a broad range of photographers and experience to get involved. By inviting anyone enthusiastic about photography to contribute, the exhibition manages to give true insight into the themes and concepts pertaining to contemporary photography, while also promoting an inclusive approach to the artworld. By doing so, the Awards literally create the space for stimulating dialogues between artistic visions and experiences from across the world. In this vein, one of the highlights of the exhibition is the experience of being able to absorb a plethora of moments from all over the globe.

Originally set up by the World Photography Organisation, which itself is dedicated to the development and advancement of photographic culture globally, this year’s Awards certainly reflects these goals by embracing a range of cultures, styles, and places, and highlights the potential of our current photographic moment.

There are some new additions to this years’ Awards. The new Youth competition newly open to anyone under the age of 19 and the Sustainability Prize which is intended to highlight the actions of one of the UN’s environmental Sustainable Development Goals, are exciting dimensions added to the programme.

Alessandro Cinque (Italy) is announced as the first-time winner of the Sustainability Prize, receiving a $5,000 cash prize and a presentation of his project as part of the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition in London. This brand-new prize is developed in collaboration with the United Nations Foundation and Sony Pictures’ Picture. Cinque won for his series Atrapanieblas (Fog Nets) which documents an innovative solution helping to tackle chronic water shortages in Lima, Peru. Cinque shows how fog nets are used to catch droplets of airborne moisture and can collect about 200 litres (53 gallons) of water per day for local residents.

Cinque’s work is though-provoking and creates social awareness. His approach and win is an inspiration for emerging photographers to continue with this legacy and further contribute to the cause. We spoke to Cinque after his win and he shares some interesting information about his work and the current climate crisis.

With particular reference to your series that won the Sustainability Prize, could you set the scene for how you chose your location and approached your subjects?

I first visited this neighborhood through work commissioned by the Reuters news agency, for which I work as a stringer. There I first saw these installations and wondered what they were. The location where they were installed, high up, reminded me of the crosses you put on top of mountains, and that sparked my curiosity. So I did some research and found the contact of the founder of the project, a Peruvian engineer, who accompanied me several times to the communities and got me in touch.

You often document the environmental and social injustices that affect indigenous communities in Latin America. How do you connect with these communities? And is it important to you to form a relationship with them in the process?

For me, establishing a relationship with the communities is crucial. Besides for me I think it is important for the story itself, as I feel that I could add something to the storytelling of these stories only and exclusively if the community accepts me, opens up to me and decides that I can work with them. In 2019, I decided to move to Peru precisely so that I could experience the country every day and be able to understand more and more about the stories I work on.

Fog nets feature in your submission for the Sustainability Prize. For those who aren’t familiar with their importance for people living in Lima, can you explain what their function is, and what environmental problem they address?

Lima is a city that is growing horizontally. Every year many people in Peru become internal migrants and migrate to Lima, the capital. Many of them come to the city through urban settlements. In many of these neighborhoods, which are considered poor or extremely poor, there is no sewage system and people have no water in their homes. These people are forced to buy water for domestic use, which is brought to them through tanker trucks. Because of the dirt roads to get to these neighborhoods, transporting and buying water is very expensive and costs up to 10 times what the water that comes out of the tap in middle-class neighborhoods costs. Obviously for families it is a big economic problem, and with this system they try to lower the cost of water by creating water free of charge. During Covid the Peruvian government gave water away to these neighborhoods, but soon, people say they will have to start paying for it again as they did before the pandemic. Through this system, people do not completely solve the problem of water shortage, but they save money by having to buy a little less.

I wonder if your approach to your photographic practise has changed due to the climate emergency becoming more alarming in the last few years?

Let’s say I also prefer to focus in stories that talk about solutions, even if they are not final solutions, but give hope. By now we all know about the climate crisis, it is important to give positive examples and use photography as a democratic tool that talks about what man is doing nowadays.

How do you believe awards such as the Sony World Photography Awards’ Sustainability Prize help contribute towards solving the climate emergency? What do you understand art’s role to be in the crisis today?

More or less I think this question is answered in the previous one, but I’ll elaborate. Photography is experiencing a magical moment and a moment of change. So many people, they walk around with a camera in their pocket, their cell phone. We all use a lot of photography, every day with social networks. Major competitions such as the Sony World Photography Awards are taken as inspiration and reference by so many professional and emerging photographers who through this also inform themselves about today’s world. Getting all these people to see and learn about stories like this and with the great movement that the Sony World Photography Awards creates raises awareness for so many people in the world. Art, today as in the past, must spark reflection, criticism, solution and hope. Informing so many more people makes people feel that we are all citizens of the same world and that together, we must strive to make it better. The best ally against climate change, is culture, information, and even if this is a drop in the ocean it is right to continue in this direction.

Feature by Michela Giachino

Since studying History of Art at The University of Oxford Michela has continued to pursue her interests in art and culture. She particularly enjoys considering how contemporary and historical art forms are presented to the wider public through exhibitions and viewings at art institutions. Michela’s favourite mediums include photography, film, painting and drawing, and she is always excited to learn about new art.