In 2011, Malagasy photographer Emmanuelle Andrianjafy arrived in the port city of Dakar, situated on the westernmost African coast, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing’s in Vain is Adrianjafy’s response to the experience of uprooting to the Senegalese capital, a city as vibrant as it is disorientating. Embracing the chaos of an unfamiliar world, she takes us on an exploratory journey through a metropolis in constant flux between construction and deconstruction. The sequence of images careens between street scenes, portraits, landscapes, and close-up details, recreating her fluctuating experience of the multiple faces of the city.

The First Book Award 2017 is published with support from Wilson Centre for Photography, Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and optimal media.

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2017 Shortlist

Judges

Diane Dufour
Diane Dufour is the Director of Le Bal. Internationally recognized for the quality of its thematic and solo exhibitions, LE BAL has gradually emerged as a major exhibition venues for photography in Europe. A graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in 1988, Diane Dufour was also director of Magnum Photos from 2000 to 2007.

Shoair Mavlian
Shoair Mavlian works on exhibitions, acquisitions and displays at Tate Modern focusing primarily on photography. She co-curated the exhibitions Conflict, Time, Photography (2014) and Project Space: A Chronicle of Interventions (2014) and has worked on many of the photography displays of the permanent collection at Tate Modern. Shoair Mavlian researches acquisitions for the Tate collection and works with the Photography Acquisitions Committee, a group of patrons helping to build the photography collection at Tate.

Polly Fleury
Polly Fleury is Director of Special Projects at the Wilson Centre for Photography where she works closely with museums, artists, galleries and publishers bringing historical and contemporary photography to public view.

Michael Mack
Michael Mack is the publisher of MACK.