Prix Pictet

Short description

Images are key to help us understand the world, still sustainability issues are often approached in a visually simplistic. Prix Pictet is an interesting initiative that attempts to highlight photography in relation to sustainability. The idea is great, but the approach is unfortunately not as innovative as it could be. Some of the photos are good looking, but the initiative would benefit from a new generation of thinkers as the approach and selection reflect more of a 70’s approach to sustainability and not a 21st century approach.

This is how the initiative is described on the page:
Launched in 2008 by the Geneva-based private bank Pictet & Cie, the Prix Pictet has rapidly established itself as the world’s leading prize in photography and sustainability. It has a unique mandate – to use the power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. The goal is to uncover art of the highest order, applied to confront the pressing social and environmental challenges of the new millennium.

The prize currently plays to a global audience of over 400 million. The exhibitions of photographs shortlisted for the first two cycles of the Prix Pictet have toured the world, so far they have been shown in Paris, Thessaloniki, Dubai, Hong Kong, Eindhoven, Dresden, Bonn, London, Berlin, Lausanne, Geneva, Dublin, Moscow, Milan, Madrid and New Delhi.

Today there is too much focus on “challenges” and too little on “opportunities”. Too much focus on areas that are threatened and too little on areas of significance, from ICT and nanotech to food habits and consumption. It would also be good if the initiative could allow some of the main pictures to be used, and be rated by the users. If not this initiative could become irrelevant as people could access Flickr to become inspired and download inspirational images.

More information about the initiative here.

The best with the app/supporting initiative

+ Encourage a group that not usually engage in important issues in society, photographers, to be active and portray important issues.
+ Allow groups working with important issues to be inspired by striking images.

The weak parts of the app/supporting initiative

- Too much focus on “challenges” and too little on “opportunities”.
- Too much focus on areas that are threatened and too little on areas of significance, from ICT and nanotech to food habits and consumption.
- No way for users to submit, rate or comment the images.
- No way to download and use inspirational images for “free” (e.g. using creative commons)

What could accelerate this app/supporting initiative into a world changer?

> Also include a solution perspective to move away from the traditional pollution perspective.
> Include a new generation of change-makers that can help bring a fresh perspective to the selection of pictures.
> Open up for more active participation though submissions, rating and comments.
> Ensure participation from different parts of the world, including dialogues in different parts of China, India, Africa, Latin American, South East Asia and the Arab world.
> Allow for non-profit use of the pictures.
> Encourage images of more complex challenges and solutions. The most important energy challenge is to develop system solutions (not the supply side solutions/problems that almost always dominate images today) and photographers seem to have difficulties to move beyond the simplicity that also influence policy making.