Leica Oskar Barnack Award

Mexico was once considered a safe haven for refugees. In recent years, however, the country has become a partner in the United States’ anti-immigration policies, seeking to prevent people from moving onward to the U.S. Venezuelan-born, Mexico-based photographer (*1989) focuses in his black-and-white series on the fates of individuals who are affected by the harsh conditions at Mexico’s border. 

Alejandro Cegarra was born in Venezuela in 1989 and has lived in Mexico since 2017. He began his career as a photojournalist in 2012 and has since received numerous awards. In 2014, he already won the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award with his series The Other Side of the Tower of David, portraying squatters in an unfinished high-rise in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. Cegarra has also been among the LOBA nominators multiple times. 

Statement by Alejandro Cegarra: “I worked on this series from 2018 to January of this year, always between the borders. I wanted to concentrate on humanity and universally human emotions. In total, I took 35,000 pictures – of which I chose 20 for the LOBA series.” 

This series seeks to visualise the sentiment conveyed by the Russian expression “bright memory”: everyday life marked by nostalgia and division. In these personal images, the German photographer (*1999), who was born in the Republic of Moldova, reflects on his family’s enduring ties to their former homeland of Transnistria – a territory that declared independence from Moldova in 1990, yet remains unrecognised internationally and supported solely by Russia. 

Serghei Duve was born in Chișinău, Moldova, in 1999. When he was one, his parents moved with the family to Hanover, Germany. His interest in photography began when he was given a camera for his tenth birthday. Since 2021, he has been studying Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography at the Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. In his projects, Duve explores questions of identity and origin, often linked to his own roots and experiences. 

Statement by Serghei Duve: “In my work, I try to tell personal stories but also to open them up in order to draw attention to broader themes. I chose the title for this work after my grandfather passed away in March 2023, when a relative expressed condolences with precisely these Russian words: ‘Swetlaja Pamiat’. Even if it is almost a cliché in Russian, these words touched me, and I found them very fitting.”