SWPA 2016: Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award a RongRong & inri

For some years the Sony World Photography Awards is one of the most important photographic events of the first part of the year. Each year the competition awards the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award, seen until now as a recognition for his career, but that this year changes pace from different points of view. Over the years it has been a very US centric premium, or very concentrated on the western photography.

The award ceremony, which will take place in the context of the gala evening of the next 22 April, the duo (art and in life) RongRong & inri is an interesting point of discontinuity, rewarding Asian artists of pretty young age, especially when compared with that of the characters They preceded them. RongRong fact was born in 1968 in Zhangzhou in Fujian Province, China, while inri is of Japanese origin, having been born in 1973 in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The exhibition of the Sony World Photography Awards 2016 at Somerset House in London will represent their first major European event, leaving the World Photography Organisation the great merit of increased awareness in the Old Continent this pair of artists. There are two main strands of their career: the first popular series of works of the duo, such as Mt. Fuji, in Nature, Liulitun and Tsumari Story, highlight the beauty of the human body surrounded by nature and the urban environment, while more recent work, however, concern the appeal and value of a new beginning in their life together, and in the world around them, with its rapid evolution.

In 2007, RongRong & inri inaugurated the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Caochangdi, the neighborhood of Beijing artists and two years later gave birth to the Three Shadows Photography Award, to discover and nurture young Chinese talents.

 The Three Shadows Photography Art Centre is the only center in China dedicated to the photographic and film, entirely non-profit and privately owned. The recent exhibition "Chinese Photography: Twentieth Century and Beyond" was the first to tell part of the story of the country from the Chinese point of view.

"The contribution of RongRong & inri the photography scene goes far beyond their vast as superb image production. For over fifteen years, they devote themselves body and soul to the development of this sector, in particular in their communities, creating infrastructure and resources to give way for artists to grow. Their photography is the mirror of intimacy that binds them for years and offers unique views through stories, collages and installations to which the critics have always paid tribute ". We hope to be again this year to London to document the Sony World Photography Awards 2016, and maybe be able to meet the award-winning artists, including RongRong & inri.