The winner of 2022 Dummy Award is Róisín White from Ireland. The book
will be designed, printed and distributed during 2023.
Motivation
Where meaning collapses
As soon as we open the first spreads in Lay Her Down Upon Her Back, we fall headlong down through the history of illness and are then brought back to the present again. Through black and white pages of archival material, drawings and staged photographs, Róisín White shapes a narrative about outdated diagnoses of the female body and its pain. We are in a seemingly wordless state, with ingrained structures lacking a language to describe what is happening. And then suddenly, in the middle of the story, something breaks it off, and in front of us we see motley, colourful, floral-patterned wallpaper – as if crying out amidst all the black and white – but in the next spread everything is silent again and we continue to fall.
Jury: Holly Roussell, Gloria Oyarzabal, Tommaso Parrillo, Nela Eggenberger och Jenny Lindhe
About the project:
Lay Her Down Upon Her Back is a body of work that examines the legacy of the 1880s treatment known as The Rest Cure. It was generally prescribed to women who were deemed to be of nervous disposition, anaemic, or hysterical, and involved them spending up to two months on bed rest, over-feeding, isolation and electrocution. This treatment has since been discredited, but its legacy in women’s healthcare remains today. The Rest Cure cultivated mistrust in women’s pain and discomfort, and made the female patient solely dependent on her male doctor. The method in which the Rest Cure was administered solidified power relations between doctor and patient and ensured that she would be submissive to her treatment. “And here lies the trouble: there are women who mimic fatigue, who indulge themselves in rest on the least pretence, who have no symptoms so truly honest that we need care regard them. These are they who spoil their own nervous systems as they spoil their children, when they have them, by yielding to the least desire and teaching them to dwell on little pains.” (Weir Mitchell, S. 1877). The lasting effect can be seen in the mistreatment and mistrust of women by physicians today, with average time for a diagnosis of endometriosis at 7 years. With most women being told to get some rest, lie down, grin and bear it. This project uses found photographs and archival material to weave a narrative between the past a present.
About the artist:
Róisín White is a Dublin based visual artist, working primarily with photography, drawing, and sculpture. White has exhibited her work in Ireland and across Europe. Her project “Lay Her Down Upon Her Back” was selected for the third edition of New Irish Works in 2019.
Honorable mention:
Like Rain Falling from the Sky by Nicola Bertasi
Landskrona Foto and Breadfield Dummy Award was arranged for the first time during Landskrona Foto Festival 2015 . Landskrona Foto Dummy Award enables the winner to have his or her book project published by Breadfield Press and Landskrona Foto during 2023. The prize includes all expenses for book production such as design, printing and distribution. The photographer will also receive a large number of books to dispose over and sell. The winner will be invited to Landskrona Foto Festival during the festival opening weekend 2-4 September 2022 to receive the award.
Previous Dummy Award winners:
2015: Meral Güler & Dan Porter, You would be earth
2016: Duccio Doretti, A lit candle lit the following and other coincidences on existence
2017: Gloria Oyarzabal, Picnos Tshombé
