The Musée de l’Elysée and Parmigiani Fleurier are thrilled to announce that Kurt Tong wins the fourth edition of the Prix Elysée. The Hong Kong born photographer was selected by an international jury of experts for his project Dear Franklin. The inspiration for this work goes back to 2018, after the death of the friend of Kurt Tong’s neighbour, as a result of which he is given an old wooden trunk. The outside is sealed by a taoist seal, and inside the trunk are a number of handwritten letters, old photographs, numerous books from the 1920s, all belonging to a man called Franklin Lung.

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"I was given a sealed trunk following the death of a friend’s neighbour a couple of years back. Aside from the huge archive of photographs, there were books, notebooks, documents, but most interestingly, letters addressed to a man called Franklin Lung and a few letters that he had written but never sent. Initially, I was just curious and wanted to find out who Franklin was, but the more I researched, the more fascinating his story became. It was soon obvious that telling his story would be the perfect follow-up to my previous works, combining the telling of a personal story steeped in history, but also one that deals with Asian cultural practices. So began the long journey of trying to piece together many threads of information and clues about Franklin and trying to learn about a man I had never met."

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Selected from 255 applications from more than 50 different nationalities, the Musée de l’Elysée is pleased to announce the eight nominated project of the fourth edition of the Prix Elysée, with the support of Parmigiani Fleurier

Alexa Brunet
France, born in 1977 in Angers

The duo Arguiñe Escandón and Yann Gross
Spain, bord in 1979 in Bilbao, and Switzerland, born in 1981 in Vevey

Magali Koenig
Switzerland, born in 1952

Thomas Mailaender
France, born in 1979 in Marseille

Moises Saman
United States and Spain, born in 1974 in Peru

Assaf Shoshan
Israel, born in 1973 in Jerusalem

Alys Tomlinson
United Kingdom, born in 1975 in Brighton

Kurt Tong
China, born in 1977 in Hong-Kong

We wish to thank all the photographers for their efforts in completing the application, and the professionals who took time to support them with a thoughtful recommendation.

Discover the nomiees' projects on www.prixelysee.ch

The jury of the Prix Elysée is composed of 6 members: 4 international experts from the fields of photography and publishing and 2 representatives of the Prix Elysée founding partners.

The voting jury members of the fourth Prix Elysée (2020-2022) are:

Experts

• Clément Chéroux, Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
• Laurel Parker, Founder and artistic director of Laurel Parker Book, Paris
• Carla Sozzani, Gallerist, publisher and founder of Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan
• Michael G. Wilson, Philanthropist, producer and collector of photographs, London

Founding partners

• Tatyana Franck, Director of the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne
• Michel Parmigiani, Founder of Parmigiani Fleurier, Fleurier