The FotoBookFestival Dummy Award 2011 goes to Milou Abel Ik ben jou Photography

The Dummy Award 2011 goes to Milou Abel from Utrecht

The 2011 jury comprised Yoko Sawada (Tokyo), Gabriele Franziska Götz (Amsterdam), John Gossage (Washington), Jeffrey Ladd (New York), Frank Seltmann (Lüdenscheid), Andreas Müller- Pohle (Berlin) and Markus Schaden (Köln). The winning book will be produced by our printing and publishing partner seltmann+shone. This work will also be presented in the next edition of European Photography. The 2nd and 3rd prizes have been supplied by our partner blurb: the 2nd prize is books to the value of 500 Euros, the 3rd prize books to the value of 300 Euros. One of the aims of the dummy award is to raise the quality of the photographic book. We appreciate all ideas and suggestions which support this goal.

Milou Abel
»Ik ben jou «

»The photographer meets the unknown woman on the street, over and over again. She senses the woman’s intensity. Eventually, the photographer asks her if it would be possible to take her photograph. When she visits her home, she is drawn into a world of rituals – and torments: the voice of a young woman full of hatred, who never stops screaming, “I am you, I am you, I am you!” The weird encounter between the photographer and the strange woman gave rise to a book concept and a dummy, composed of her own images and snapshots from past times, using a double gate fold technique to allow the right and left-hand sides of the book to be combined with each other at will. The project won this year’s Dummy Award at the 4th International Photobook Festival in Kassel. It convinced the jury not only because of the eloquent and enigmatic rendering of the story of this peculiar woman, but also because of the extraordinary design of the book. The photographer’s name is Milou Abel while the strange woman remains anonymous.« © 2011 European Photography, Berlin

Milou Abel in European Photography 89Have a look at Milous website:

Milou Abel