Carrie Mae Weems Makes History as First Black Woman to Win Prestigious Hasselblad Photography Prize

 The Hasselblad Foundation announce Carrie Mae Weems as the 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate. She receives a gold medal and the sum of SEK 2,000,000 (£156,477.54).  The award also includes a medium format Hasselblad camera from the Gothenburg-based camera company Hasselblad. The award ceremony will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden on 13 October 2023. That same day, an exhibition of Carrie Mae Weems’s work will open at the Hasselblad Center and a new publication about the artist will be released.

The Hasselblad Foundation’s citation regarding the Hasselblad Award laureate 2023, Carrie Mae Weems:

Carrie Mae Weems’s work has for decades anticipated salient issues of our time – the struggle for racial equality and human rights – with unflinching visual and ethical force. Her artistic practice is inherently activist, poignant, and lyrical. She creates evocative, potent tableaux and confronts painful  histories, institutional power, and social discriminations. At the core of Weems’s wide-ranging oeuvre is the still photograph, but she also deftly employs video, text, immersive multimedia installations, and performance. She often inserts herself in her work, thus embodying and commemorating the Black female subject.

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Carrie Mae Weems: “In the midst of the radical shifts taking place across cultural institutions, and as the first African American woman to receive the Hasselblad Award, some might say, ‘it’s about time!’ Nevertheless, receiving the Hasselblad Award has left me speechless. I don’t have the words to  express the depth of my gratitude. To have my family name inscribed on this historic roster, alongside some of the most outstanding photographers of our time, is a cherished honor. To be recognized comes with the continued responsibility to deliver on the promise made to myself and to the field, which is to shine a light into the darker corners of our time and thereby,  with a sense of grace and humility, illuminate a path forward.  For this honor, I thank the Hasselblad Foundation and the jury.”