Announcing the Winner

...

July 22, 2025

Myriam Boulos, Ongoing War, 2023
© Myriam Boulos

The 19th Foam Paul Huf Award goes to Magnum photographer Myriam Boulos.

Myriam Boulos stands to receive a cash prize of 20,000 euros and a solo exhibition at Foam Amsterdam in 2026. Against the background of war and political conflict in her home country, the photographer (b. 1992 in Lebanon) consistently succeeds in transforming a personal search into images that elicit a universal resonance. Her work shows how people who live outside prevalent norms manage to find each other, even within a social system designed to render them invisible. As the winner of this year’s Paul Huf Award, she represents a new generation of visual storytellers who understand that the political is deeply personal – and that photography is far from a neutral observer; it is a vital, lived tool of resistance, reflection, and the visible claiming of the right to exist in all forms of identity.

A five-member jury of renowned industry experts reviewed the submissions of 95 artists, who had been brought forward by 24 international nominators. Myriam Boulos was nominated by both Munem Wasif (artist, curator at the Chobimela International Festival of Photography, and educator based in Bangladesh) and Lea Vene (cultural anthropologist and curator at Organ Vida, Croatia). Boulos is the first artist from the Middle East to receive the Foam Paul Huf Award.

The shortlist for this year’s award also included Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz, Soumya Sankar Bose, Nanna Heitman, Amina Kadous, and Zora J Murff.

Katrin Ullmann

Myriam Boulos, Ongoing War, 2023
© Myriam Boulos