The Independent carries 'What is crime?' photo competition winners
The winners of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies photographic competition, sponsored by the Wates Foundation, were published in The Independent newspaper.
The competition asked for visual answers to the question What is crime? The photographs were also be exhibited at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, near Brixton, south London.
The Independent reported:
The resulting exhibition, to be mounted in association with The Independent, includes Pardip by Alex Masi. One eminent competition judge, the film director Ken Loach, named it as his favourite entry.
Rather than traditional images of criminality and justice, such as prison bars or policemen, the competition the Centre asked for photographs that would "stimulate thinking about harm, injustice and crime". The exhibition contains a series of powerful images in three categories - Environment, Finance and Violence - all of which ask the viewer to recalibrate their sense of what is, or isn't, criminal. Open to anyone, the competition attracted participation from a range of amateur and professional photographers.
"The entries weren't necessarily judged on the excellence of the photograph," says CCJS Associate Anna Gilmour, "but on whether people had understood the ideas and themes and executed their response well. Of course, the professional photographers produced some particularly excellent examples, but we had fantastic entries from amateurs, too."