Mirror of the present: the winning shots of the Sony World Photography Awards in Milan – Milan

Milano – After the great exhibitions dedicated to the lens masters Jacques Henri Lartigue, Elliott Erwitt and Robert Doisneau, the Cloisters of Sant’Eustorgio open up to contemporary photography in all its nuances. Environment, current events, geopolitics, migrations, work, innovation, dreams and aspirations of the younger generations are among the themes of the Sony World Photography Awards, the major competition that promotes photography as an inclusive and horizontal practice, capable of uniting professionals, amateurs, students, to make it accessible to ever new audiences. After two months, the London debut at Somerset House, the winning and finalist shots of the sixteenth edition arrive in Milan in the setting of the Carlo Maria Martini Diocesan Museum: 160 photographs taken with extremely heterogeneous approaches and styles by established and emerging authors, which testify to the variety and popularity of one of the most popular artistic languages ​​of our time.

Edgar Martins, Portugal, Finalist, Professional Competition, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2023

Overall winner of the competition is the Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins, who won the title of Photographer of the Year with the series Our War, tribute to friend and photojournalist Anton Hammerl killed in 2011 during the civil war in Libya. Numerous Italians have been awarded: Alessandro Cinque, for example, won the Sustainability Prize created in collaboration with the United Nations Foundation to reward stories and people who pursue the objectives established by the UN for sustainable development. Italy also placed on the podium in the “Creative Photography” categories with images by Noemi Comi, Edoardo Delille and Giulia Piermartiri, “Landscape” with Bruno Zanzottera and Fabio Bucciarelli and Sport with Andrea Fantini and Nicola Zolin.

Alessandro Cinque, Italy, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2023

“The increasingly artistic and documentary connotation that defines this important international award arouses immense interest in the styles, so heterogeneous, and in the many stories with which it invites us to get in touch”, explains the curator of the exhibition Barbara Silbe, journalist, co-founder and managing director of EyesOpen! Magazine: “Each of these photographers, professional or emerging, clinging to the present, testified to one of his experiences, recounted it by choosing a language, a precise grammar, and thought about how to develop it so that it acquired coherence and transformed into something tangible for all of us. Through the narratives of the award-winning authors who, thanks to this world stage, have the opportunity to disseminate their work for free and make a qualitative leap in their careers, we get to know the world, the peoples, the facts, and we feel emotions. The same ones that emerged while I was editing these portfolios, the same ones that will reach anyone who sees these works printed and hung”.

The winning shots of Sony World Photography 2023 will be on display in Milan from 16 June to 3 September.

Lee Ann Olwage, South Africa, Winner, Professional Competition, Creative, Sony World Photography Awards 2023