Photo Contest:
New Images of Age and Aging

Institution:
Joint Academy Initiative on Aging – German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

What circumstances and opportunities do we hope for in old age? Do we have models from today’s perspective to go by? How do we imagine our lives from 65 on? How can the potential of the “old” in society be meaningfully utilized? Submitted photos should deal with civil or personal conceptions and ideas of aging. We cordially invite all photographers regardless of age, whether professional, amateur, artist, student, or hobbyist, to participate.

We keep getting older and more and more of us are in old age. In Germany for excample: by just 2030, more people will be over 65 than under. On average, a girl born in 2050 will reach the age of 100 years. What does this mean?

Contrary to popular prejudices, older people are, with appropriate workplace organization, no less productive than younger people, they are able to learn, and open to new technology. 60-yearolds are physically 5 years younger than the generation before them was. All findings about aging shows: The lifestyle and capabilities of today’s elders no longer has anything in common with being old in 1950.
In order to be able to get the most out of the 30 extra years of life that have been won over the last century, however, and not to consider them as merely an undesired attachment to the end of life, we must all together change our preconceptions about old age. Many historically transmitted and still modernly held images of old age are no longer true to reality. But even those images that are adjusted for free time and consumption are to restricting. They also ignore the gains in life expectancy, health, and capability in the aforementioned old age. They overlook the accumulated variation among those of the same age as they grow older. They don’t express that being old now and in the future is what we – in a lifetime – make of it.
Thirty top-class scientists, representing medicine, economics, business management, psychology, athletics science, sociology, information technology, and further disciplines, have posed the question: What this aging means for the strength of the economy, the cohabitation of the generations, and for every single one of us. The give the following answer: They are won years.

We are looking for new images of aging that demonstrate new lifestyles with these extra years,
their conditions and consequences.

Winning pictures

The three winning pictures will be awarded
€ 500 (winner),
€ 300 (second),
€ 200 (third).

Exhibition and catalog

A jury of the Joint Academy Initiative on Aging and professionals from the photography and art fields (e.g., Museum of Modern Art Leipzig, a journalist from DER SPIEGEL) will select the photographs to be exhibited. These photographs will be published on the project’s website and exhibited at various locations in Germany. The locations of exhibitions will be advertised on the website. There will also be a catalog of the project.

Jury

Prof. Dr. Josef Ehmer, historian, University of Vienna, member of the Joint Academy Initiative on Aging
Dr. Andreas Krase, curator of photography and cinematography, Museum of the City of Dresden
Christian Schwägerl, journalist, Berlin Office, Der Spiegel
Dr. Johannes Stahl, Cologne, visiting professor of art history, Burg Giebichenstein, Halle
Prof. Dr. Ursula M. Staudinger, vice speaker of the Joint Academy Initiative on Aging
Heidi Stecker, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig
Dr. Jeannette Stoschek, research associate, Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig

Application:

Signed, completed application form (see below) by mail.
Maximum of 2 photographs (printed, no larger than 8.5”x11”, and labeled on the reverse side) by mail.
The same photos as printable (300dpi) image files (jpg/tiff) by email to .
These image files must be named as follows: Name of applicant_title of picture_year of origin.
In the case that the picture shows one or more clearly identifiable people, the written consent of all persons is required.

Registration Form (pdf)

Consent Form (pdf)

Information (pdf)

Application deadline: Friday, March 12, 2010.