In the first event in our series of discussions with this year’s finalists for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, American photographer Rahim Fortune gives insight to the poignant moments of loss, anger and healing captured in his work. Hear Fortune share some of the stories behind his powerful images and his approach to documenting the human condition. Moderated by Dr. Taous Dahmani.

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Biographies

Dr. Taous Dahmani (she/her) is a London-based French, British and Algerian art historian, writer and curator specialising in photography. Dahmani curated the 2022 Louis Roederer Discovery Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles in France. In October 2024, she curated two themed group exhibitions at the Jaou Photo Biennale in Tunis, Tunisia. The following month, she unveiled a solo exhibition of SMITH at NOUA in Bodø, Norway. For FEP, she is curating Anastasia Samoylova: Adaptation at the Saatchi Gallery. 

Her writing is featured in photobooks published by Loose Joints, Textuel, Tate Publishing and Chose Commune, as well as in magazines like The British Journal of Photography, FOAM, GQ, Aperture, Camera Austria, 1000 Words Magazine. She is the associate editor of the award winning book Shining Lights. Black women Photographers in 1980’s-90’s Britain (MACK/Autograph ABP, 2024). She joined LCC (UAL) as an Associate Lecturer in January 2023.

Rahim Fortune uses photography to ask fundamental questions about American identity. Focusing on the narratives of individual families and communities, he explores shifting geographies of migration and resettlement and the way that these histories are written on the landscapes of Texas and the American South. 

Hardtack is an unleavened bread made with flour, water and salt that was typical of the southern states of America during the Civil War era. Due to its extremely long shelf life, hardtack is long associated with survivalism and land migration. Fortune draws on this as a metaphor for the enduring nature of Black culture and traditions. Hardtack  uncovers the roots that tie Fortune's native landscape to the conflicts and nuances associated with the post-emancipation Americas. 

Fortune borrows from the language of vernacular and archival photography to interrogate the historical relationship of his community to photography; rooted in the landscape. The subjects of his striking portraits of coming-of-age traditions – young bull-riders, praise dancers and pageant queens – all inherit and gracefully embrace these community rituals. Fortune pays tribute to the rigour, discipline and creative flair of these cultural performances, alongside the intergenerational conversation between young people and elders handing down these traditions. In Hardtack, Fortune weaves documentary and personal history in a sincere expression of love and passion to the region which has nourished him personally and creatively.

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