The Formentera Department of Culture reports that prizes were distributed yesterday for the 18th Beni Trutmann photography contest. Fifty-one participants shared 139 photographs across the different categories. Black and white, colour and social justice categories saw 21 adepts submitting 61 of their best shots, while the category of smartphone snaps received another thirty contenders’ 78 photographs.

Colour
Victoria Gibert won first prize in the colour category for her photograph of the erosion-sculpted sandstone so characteristic of the local coastline. The artist claims visions of sand giants, hammer and chisel in hand, were clear to her as she shot the winning submission. Second-place winner Marcos Colomar Verdera describes his entry as a tribute to his güelo (grandfather), who, at 90, still makes esparto grass baskets with the same enthusiasm as when he was a boy. Josep López Vañó’s third-prize photograph was taken in Punta Prima as the artist searched for the perfect spot for wintertime squid-fishing.

Black and white
First prize in the black and white category went to Wolfgang Wicher for a photo he took in 1965 at age 14 on his first trip to Formentera. In the foreground, Toni, a fisherman, prepares for one of his daily outings. Pictured in Javier Sánchez Gómiz’s second-place-winning entry is a dry dock in Es Caló on one of those cloudy, half-rainy winter days. Joan Ribas scored his third-place win after zooming in on the hands of his mother, making bread the traditional way.

‘Fotodenúncia’
Josep López Vañó came away winner in the contest’s politically-engaged category for an image of a mask at the bottom of the sea. Vañó determined to capture the shot after an experience last August, when he counted a total of 24 discarded masks on his 2.5km journey from home to work. No second or third prizes were awarded.

Winning entries in colour, black and white and social justice categories scored photographers €500 (first prize), €300 (second prize) and €200 (third prize).

Youth
Winning youth contenders in the smartphone shots category were Jana Yern Majoral won first prize, with second and third prizes going to Ana Córdoba Mures and Aya Assadbuuh, respectively. They won a Kodak Friendly Zoom FZ201 digital camera (first prize), a Kodak Pixpro FZ53 digital camera (second) and a Sunstech Andrenaline sports camera (third).

Exhibition
Winning photographs and selected other submissions can be seen in the “Ajuntament Vell” exhibition space, 4–15 May, 11.00am to 2.00pm and 6.00pm to 8.00pm, except on Monday mornings and Sundays, when the gallery is closed.

Culture chief Susana Labrador encouraged islanders to check out the display and thanked participants for submissions, insisting, “Each one is the perfect reminder of what this contest is all about”. The Beni Trutmann photo competition was originally conceived as an homage to the brilliant Swiss photographer who left the island with an archive of more than thirty thousand prints reflecting a deep love of Formentera’s natural beauty. It’s the reason organisers encourage contenders to put the island front and centre: whether through landscapes, flora and fauna or humans in nature, submitted photos are a way to promote a commitment to the environment.

4 May 2021
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera

To celebrate International Dance Day, 29 April, students of the Consell’s Escola de Música i Dansa took to social media to share a video. Dancers provide the video’s voice-over, a reading of this year’s manifesto. The text, in which the ongoing pandemic looms distinctly, was co-written by leading Stuttgart Ballet dancer Friedemann Vogel. It is reproduced below:

“Everything starts with movement; it is an instinct we all share. Dance, for its part, is movement refined in an effort to communicate something. As much as impeccable technique is important and impressive, the essence is what the dancer expresses within this movement.

As dancers, we are in constant movement, aspiring to create moments that are unforgettable. This is what every dancer, of every genre, strives to achieve. So when we are suddenly deprived of performance, with theatres closed and festivals cancelled, our worlds come to a standstill. There is no physical contact. No performances. No audience. Never in recent history has the dance community been collectively challenged to stay motivated, to find its raison d’être.

Yet it is precisely now when something precious has been taken away from us that we truly appreciate how vital what we do is and how much dance means to society at large. Often, the physical prowess of dancers is praised, when, in reality, we are even more sustained by our mental strength. I believe that this unique combination of physical and psychological agility will help us to better ourselves, to reinvent ourselves to continue to dance and inspire”.

29 April 2021
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera