Photography has always occupied a unique place among the visual arts because it records reality while constantly questioning it. Every generation of photographers develops its own language, introducing new ways of seeing familiar subjects and encouraging audiences to reconsider what appears self-evident. The most compelling images rarely provide immediate answers; instead, they invite curiosity, interpretation, and conversation. As photographer David Hockney once remarked, “Photography is all right if you don’t mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralysed cyclops.”
The importance of emerging artistic talent continues to receive growing international attention. According to UNESCO’s Creative Economy Outlook, cultural and creative industries rely on the continuous emergence of new artists whose ideas contribute to the development of contemporary culture while preserving artistic diversity. The report also highlights that competitions, awards, and institutional support play an essential role in providing visibility for young creators at the beginning of their careers. For many photographers, these initiatives become an important step towards international recognition, placing their work before curators, collectors, museums, and a wider public. They also introduce new artistic perspectives that continue to shape the future of visual culture.
One of the initiatives dedicated to supporting this new generation is the Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents, organised by Christian Dior Parfums in collaboration with the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) and LUMA Arles. Now in its ninth edition, the prize has established itself as an important platform for emerging photographers whose work expands the possibilities of the medium through original artistic research.
This year’s award has been presented to Akari Takenobu, a student at the Tokyo University of the Arts, for her photographic series Threshold. The selection was made by a jury chaired by British photographer David Sims, joined by French photographer Vasantha Yogananthan, Julie Jones, Director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, together with long-standing jury members Maja Hoffmann and Peter Philips. Bringing together photographers, museum leadership, and creative figures from different disciplines, the panel reflects the increasingly close relationship between photography, fashion, and contemporary art.
Takenobu’s practice centres on questions of perception and the invisible. Drawing on personal experiences that have accompanied her since childhood, she investigates subjects that exist between reality and imagination, using photography alongside collage and installation. She refers to these works as “pseudo-experiments”, where images become tools for examining ideas that cannot easily be explained through conventional observation.
The artist frequently places herself within the work, fragmenting and reconstructing her own body through photographic intervention. These transformations remove the body from its familiar physical presence, introducing what she describes as a simulated process of disappearance. Rather than documenting reality, the photographs invite viewers to reconsider how identity, memory, and perception are constructed through images.
Surrealism quietly runs through the series, although it appears without theatrical gestures or visual excess. Familiar scenes gradually shift into something uncertain, allowing the ordinary to coexist with the unknown. By challenging accepted ways of seeing, Threshold proposes photography as a space where reality remains open to interpretation instead of fixed definition.
Photo credit: Andrea Cenetiempo for Christian Dior Parfums
