The ENAIRE Foundation announces the results of the 2024 Photography Awards

The ENAIRE Foundation announced the winners of the 17th edition of its Photography Awards on Tuesday. Javier Riera won first place in the ENAIRE Foundation's Photography Award for his work 'LG NL'. Second place was shared by Beatriz Ruibal for ‘Olivo’Olea europaea’ and Patrik Grijalvo for 'MAAT Lisboa, fotografía sobre cristal’. Third place went to Greta Alfaro for ‘La villa de los misterios’.

This year, the jury decided to award a joint Second Prize due to the outstanding quality and storytelling of both photographs “after a long deliberation and concluding that both were deserving of the prize,” explained Ángeles Imaña as the jury's secretary.

In addition to the four winners of the ENAIRE Foundation Photography Awards, selected by the jury, PHotoESPAÑA presented a Special Mention, which this year went to Amaya Hernández Sigüenza for ‘El mercado de Olavide’, from the ‘Memoria de un espacio’ project.

As in previous editions, there will be a special public's choice award, which will be decided based on likes from a QRNavilens and on the ENAIRE Foundation's social media platforms, from 29 May to 31 August, during the collective exhibition of the selected works.

The collective exhibition of the Photography Awards and the exhibition of the Enaire Foundation's 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award will officially open 2024 PHotoESPAÑA at the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid on 29 May.

This year, the ENAIRE Foundation's Photography Awards were announced on 30 January, and the deadline for submitting proposals ended on 15 March. 

764 candidates of 18 nationalities were presented, with a total of 2,069 photographic projects proposed, with a balance in the genders of the candidates, with a ratio of 358 women to 406 men.    

This year's jury consisted of: 

- José Manuel Ballester, National Photography Award Winner and 2023 Enaire Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

- Daniel Canogar, an internationally acclaimed visual artist. 

- María Santoyo, Director of PHotoESPAÑA. 

- Semíramis González, independent curator. 

- María Ortega Gálvez, curator, cultural manager, artist and member of the executive board of MAV (Mujeres en las Artes Visuales - Women in Visual Arts).

- Margarita Asuar, Managing Director of the ENAIRE Foundation.

- Ángeles Imaña, Director of Conservation and Cultural Projects for the ENAIRE Foundation, as the secretary of the jury. 

[Margarita Asuar (first on the left) with the rest of the jury of the XVII edition of its Photography Awards].

The jury announced the winners of the Photography Awards after a rigorous process to select 30 proposals chosen in the first phase from amongst the 2,069 photographs submitted.

Following the jury's deliberation on the 30 pre-selected works in the first phase, the following winning photographs of this 17th Edition were selected:

First prize, worth 12,000 euros, goes to:

- ‘LG NL’ by Javier Riera.

Second prize, worth 8,000 euros, goes jointly to:

- ‘Olivo’Olea europaea’ by Beatriz Ruibal.

- 'MAAT Lisboa', photography about crystal by Patrik Grijalvo.

Third prize, worth 5,000 euros, goes to:

- ‘La villa de los misterios’ by Greta Alfaro

And the 14 finalists selected are:   

Andrés Gallego Bellido, Amaya Hernández Sigüenza, Renata Bolívar, Álvaro Deprit, Carlos Folgoso Sueiro, Txuspo Poyo Mendía, Pablo García García, Paco Valverde Gámez, Tomás González Justicia, Lucía Gorostegui, Manuela Lorente Cort, Gloria Oyarzábal Lodge, Jesús Umbría Brito and Ana Amado.

Margarita Asuar stated that “at the ENAIRE Foundation, we want to congratulate and thank the 764 artists who submitted works to this new edition of the Awards”. “All the proposals submitted showcase great originality and professionalism, as well as depth in the topics presented. Looking through all the photographs was a true visual feast. After seeing so much creativity, 2069 photographs by artists from 18 countries, submitted for these awards, I can assure that there is a great effort and a lot of talent behind each proposal, which made the jury's selection process a difficult one. In fact, two joint second-place winners were announced after intense deliberations by the jury”, noted Asuar.

As for the work of Javier Riera, winner of the First Prize, the Managing Director of the ENAIRE Foundation explained how “the relationship between geometry and nature takes on a meditative and futuristic character that aspires to expand the public's perception, building bridges to hidden dimensions in the spaces. Javier Riera plays with geometry to produce a photographic project with a subtle and revealing resonance, as evidenced by the work selected”.

As concerns the winners of this year's edition, she added that “we decided on the winning works by relying on criteria involving technique, originality and artistic and thematic relevance”. “Seeing the winning works, it is absolutely evident that an image is worth a thousand words because these photographs suggest multiple interpretations and will undoubtedly establish a dialogue with the public that will prompt reflection and reaction: these are striking photographs with different themes and techniques", stated Asuar.

The special mention of PHotoESPAÑA goes to:  

‘El mercado de Olavide’, from the project ‘Memoria de un espacio’ by Amaya Hernández Sigüenza

María Santoyo, director of PHotoESPAÑA, noted “the research work related to the architectural heritage and certain spaces of urban sociability that are going extinct, as well as the formal resolution that resorts to metaphor, subtlety and a hybrid action between installation and photography”. “The result is an elegant abstraction that prompts a question on the dissolution of the city as a space of coexistence”, explains Santoyo.

The three winning works, the 14 shortlisted works and the special mention of PHotoESPAÑA will be part of the collective exhibition that the ENAIRE Foundation will open on 29 May at the Royal Botanical Garden, which can be visited until 31 August. There will also be a special public's choice award, which will be decided based on likes from a QRNavilens and on the ENAIRE Foundation's social media platforms, during the collective exhibition of the selected works.  

Also at the Royal Botanical Garden, the ENAIRE Foundation is organising the exhibition of the 2024 Photography Lifetime Achievement Award, worth 17,000 euros, which seeks to recognise an artistic career dedicated to photography, and which this year has been awarded to artist Paloma Navares. There will be a retrospective, produced by the ENAIRE Foundation and curated by Ángeles Imaña, Director of Conservation and Cultural Projects at the ENAIRE Foundation, presented under the title "Light of Intuition".  

Paloma Navares's exhibition was also selected as one of the guest projects of the MAV Biennial.  

A digital catalogue will be made of the Photography Awards, which will be published online by the ENAIRE Foundation in the next few days.    

This year, the ENAIRE Foundation will also incorporate new digital museum resources in the exhibitions of the Photography Awards and the Lifetime Achievement Award.   "A virtual tour accessible from the ENAIRE Foundation website will allow the award-winning photographs to be viewed from anywhere in the world, through which we will promote the two sides of the democratisation of art: access to art, and its realisation, since photography is the most democratised artistic genre, as it is the most practised", said Margarita Asuar, Managing Director of the ENAIRE Foundation.

This year, QRNavilens codes, which describe the photographs to make them accessible to blind people, were also incorporated.   “We must make art accessible to everyone, which is why we are going to incorporate accessibility in the exhibitions, in order to adapt them to the various capacities of the public to more broadly enjoy the art of photography”, concludes Margarita Asuar.

About ENAIRE Foundation

Is a cultural institution of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility that, in addition to managing, preserving and exhibiting the ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art, engages in a comprehensive annual programme of activities that focus on aeronautical art and culture. Notably, it is one of the institutions that currently provides the most support to photography through its annual prizes - which have become a benchmark for professional photographers - and by hosting exhibits.

It is the only foundation in Spain that combines the two seemingly disparate themes of art and aeronautical culture, bringing them together by undertaking a programme of activities that promote the study, research, knowledge and dissemination of aeronautical culture, integrating history and modernity to raise awareness of the world of aviation in our country.

The Naves de Gamazo are the first permanent home of the ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art, an example of collaboration between government agencies that was made possible thanks to the partnership and joint efforts of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the Government of Cantabria, through the Office for Culture, Tourism and Sport, and the Port Authority of Santander, which share the operating expenses of the centre in order to ensure the present and future viability of this cultural project.

These new museum resources are now available on the Fundación's website.

About ENAIRE

ENAIRE is the air navigation service provider in Spain.

As a company of the Ministry of Sustainable Transport and Mobility, it provides en route control services for all flights and overflights from five control centres in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Gran Canaria and Palma, as well as approach services to every airport in the country.

In addition, 46 airports receive communication, navigation and surveillance services from ENAIRE, which also maintains their air traffic control systems, and 21 of them, including the country's busiest airports, rely on its aerodrome air traffic control services.

ENAIRE is Europe's fourth largest air traffic manager and participates in the A6 Alliance, a coalition of air navigation providers responsible for over 80% of European air traffic, and which is seeking to modernise the air traffic management system. It is also a member of other international alliances promoting the Single European sky, such as SESAR Joint Undertaking, SESAR Deployment Manager, iTEC, CANSO and ICAO.

ENAIRE, as the responsible agency identified by the Ministry of Sustainable Transport and Mobility to implement the U-Space system in Spain, will, through its digital platform, provide the Common Information Services (CIS), which are essential to facilitate U-space services to drones and Urban Air Mobility in cooperation with local air traffic services, so that all types of aircraft can fly safely in the same airspace.

ENAIRE has received the highest score in Europe on the aviation safety key performance indicator for four years in a row. It has also been awarded the EFQM 500 Seal for its safe, efficient, innovative and sustainable management of air navigation services.