Sophie Ristelhueber awarded the Hasselblad Prize 2025

Lebanon, Kuwait, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, and the West Bank - places marked by conflict often form the core of Sophie Ristelhueber's work. She avoids the sensational and instead highlights an emotional intensity in the silent, lasting traces of human presence and activity. Throughout her artistry, there is a fascination with humanity's ability to create and destroy, only to create again. The photographs in her series are meticulously selected fragments from a larger narrative where the viewer is invited to create the whole.

WB #24, 2005 © Sophie Ristelhueber

Sophie Ristelhueber was born in 1949 in Paris, where she still lives and works. She studied literature at the Sorbonne, focusing on the literary movement le nouveau roman - the new novel - which challenged traditional narrative structure by fragmenting storytelling and focusing on details. These principles have inspired Ristelhueber's photographic practice, where she highlights traces and details rather than the actual event. Her literary background is also evident in her acclaimed publications. The photobooks are often small in format, with text fragments as an integral part of the storytelling. Ristelhueber has designed and published many of her artist books herself, often in limited editions, which have become sought-after collector's items over time.

Ristelhueber's works have been exhibited at a number of international institutions, including MoMA (New York, USA), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA), Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, USA), The Power Plant (Toronto, Canada), Tate Modern (London, UK), and Imperial War Museum (London, UK). She has also participated in the biennials in Johannesburg and São Paulo, the Triennial in Echigo-Tsumari, and the photography festival Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles. In Paris, her works have been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Musée Zadkine, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Musée Rodin, Institut Giacometti, among others. Her latest exhibition, with the thought-provoking title What the Fuck!, was shown at Galerie Poggi in Paris, 2025.

The exhibition at Hasselblad Center will be the awardee's first solo exhibition in Scandinavia and will be on display from October 11, 2025, to January 18, 2026.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Hasselblad Foundation is collaborating with the Gothenburg-based camera company Hasselblad, which honors this year's awardee by including a new camera as part of the award.