IPE 163 Award by the British Photographic Society | Tim Franco

Photographer Tim Franco, has been awarded the IPE 163 Award for his series Unperson - Portraits of North Korean Defectors.

For the past three years, Tim Franco has been documenting the incredible stories of women and men fleeing the North Korean dictatorship in their search for a new life. This project is composed of portraits, testimonies and landscapes tracing the paths of their exile.
To reflect this transition, Tim Franco has used an analog process that is not supposed to exist: the negative of a polaroid is revealed through a series of chemical purifications, giving an often uncertain and imperfect result. Each portrait is accompanied by a narrative that tells how and why these women and men made this radical decision.

The exhibition and awards are selected anonymously, and the Selection Panel all gravitated towards these strong portraits during the selection.