Jerwood/Photoworks Award Winners

Photoworks is pleased to announce the recipients of the fifth edition of the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards as Roman Manfredi and Sayuri Ichida and to share more about the projects planned and tours across the UK.

Expanded photography works using still and moving image, sound and installation by Roman Manfredi and Sayuri Ichida will be presented as two solo shows within one UK touring exhibition throughout 2026 at the following venues:

10 January - 8th February: Drawing Room and Tannery Arts (London) with a preview on 9 January, 5pm for media, 6pm-8pm preview
21 February - 25 April: Barnsley Civic (South Yorkshire)
7 May 2026 - 4 July: Ffotogallery (Cardiff)
12 September - 20 December: Street Level Photoworks (Glasgow)

The artists received a £15,000 award each (comprising £10,000 fee and £5,000 production budget) with a full package of support from Photoworks and guest mentors to create new work over a 12-month period.

Both series of new works look at specific locations and share reflections on broader society. While both artists attempt to depict what is not always visible, Ichida explores how shifting landscapes quietly reshape the fabric of community life, and Roman reflects on how communities remain tethered to landscapes held still, frozen in time and memory.


Roman’s work titled TRA exists in the liminal, hinting at transformation, motion without destination. It speaks to a state of being between, among, and within, an energetic space where masculine and feminine converge and dissolve, where categories blur into something more elemental. Using still and moving images, portraits, film and fragments, Roman journeys through Napoli, where the landscape is caught between time periods and the relationship between people, personal identity and place is intuitive, felt, embodied, and ancient.

Ichida’s work, 空席 (Kūseki), meaning “empty seats”, addresses Japan’s rapid population decline, with rural communities among the hardest hit. Between 2002 and 2020, nearly 9,000 schools closed, with around 450 more shutting down each year. As birth rates fall and towns shrink, schools, once central to daily life, stand empty, their presence quietly fading from the landscape. The presentation of Kūseki spans across photography, collage, sound and sculptural installation in an effort to respond to this ongoing disappearance.

Launched in 2015, the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards are a biennial major commissioning opportunity open to all UK based artists using photography and within the first ten years of their career. The Jerwood/Photoworks Awards offer the awardees the opportunity to make ambitious new work and significantly develop their practice at a pivotal moment in their career. Previous recipients have included Joanne Coates, Heather Agyepong, Silvia Rosi, Theo Simpson, Alejandra Carles-Tolra, Sam Laughlin, Lúa Ribeira, Matthew Finn, Joanna Piotrowska and Tereza Zelenková.

Louise Fedotov-Clements, Director, Photoworks, said, “The Jerwood/Photoworks Awards are a rare and important opportunity with an incredible legacy, they offer career defining support through a programme of mentoring, development opportunities and exhibitions for mid-career practitioners. We are delighted to award the Jerwood/Photoworks Award to Sayuri Ichida and Roman Manfredi. Both artists use photography in expanded, innovative and unique ways to look at important subjects that are both personal and political”

The jury panel that selected the artists included:
Cindy Sissokho, Curator, Cultural Producer & Writer
Ingrid Pollard, Artist and Researcher
Louise Fedotov-Clements, Director of Photoworks
Lúa Ribeira, Photographer
Omar Kholeif, Director of collections and Senior Curator at Sharjah Art Foundation
Lucy Ash broadcast journalist and author


Sayuri Ichida is a Japanese artist based in Margate, UK. Her work explores themes of self-identity, personal memories, and life experiences, often focusing on the human form and sculptural objects to create thought-provoking images. Ichida's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including solo shows at PhMuseum Lab (Bologna) and IBASHO Gallery (Antwerp), as well as solo presentations at Unseen Amsterdam and the InCadaques International Photography Festival (Cadaqués) in 2022. In 2023 and 2024, her work was presented by IBASHO Gallery at Art Paris, and she had a solo presentation at the SPARK Art Fair in Vienna.. Her artworks are held in the collections of Museum Voorlinden and SAMMLUNG VERBUND. Her book Absentee was named one of the ten best photobooks by the Prix Nadar Prize in 2022 and she was an artist-in-residence at Light Work in 2023. Her latest work, Ctrl Shift + J, was shortlisted for the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2023/2024 and selected for the Benrido Award as part of the Hariban Award 2023. She also received a DYCP grant from Arts Council England in 2023. Ichida graduated from Tokyo Visual Arts College in 2006 and initially pursued a career in commercial photography in Tokyo and New York. In 2016, she shifted her focus to art photography and completed an MA in Photography Arts from the University of Westminster in 2022.

Roman Manfredi is a British lens-based artist who lives and works in London. Using analogue photography, moving image and sound, Roman’s work explores the intersections of personal narratives and political landscapes through the everyday lived experience. Driven by a passion for amplifying working-class narratives, Roman’s work is deeply rooted in capturing underrepresented communities, experiences and identities, with a particular emphasis on LGBTQ+ perspectives.
In 2023, Roman’s solo exhibition We/Us, marked the UK’s first visual art project dedicated to celebrating the undocumented presence of butches and studs from working-class backgrounds with the British landscape. In 2024, Manfredi’s work has been showcased in several prominent group exhibitions, including the LensCulture Art Photography Awards 2024, winner (New York), Revela'T Contemporary Analog Photography Festival (Barcelona), Pride Photo Awards 2024 (Netherlands), 70:15:40 Project UK, winner (London), and BBA Photography Prize and MPB Award, finalist (Berlin). Roman holds a BA (hons) Fine Art from the Byam Shaw School of Art at Central St Martins and an MA in Fine Art (Printmaking) from the Royal College of Art.


On behalf of the panel who awarded the artists, Omar Kholeif, Director of collections and Senior Curator at Sharjah Art Foundation added, “Both of the selected artists, who were unanimously chosen by the jury, subtly engage with the hidden and errant aspects of histories personal to them. Through this prize, they have proposed a framework, one that fashions the capacious potential for their ideas to coalesce under one sun for myriad audiences in various contexts. Although distinct in character, tone and tenor, both deploying divergent approaches to image-making, both photographers are preoccupied with unfolding the interior folds of time--unbuckling the ways in which spectators make sense of the self through image culture. Exploring subjects and concepts as broad and specific as the urban and the rural; erasure and disappearance versus the illusion of perpetual economic growth; the visual language and codification of gender and personhood, the artists grasp these ideas, contouring them into a view of the world that is boundless, endless, in its potential.

Lucy Ash, Jerwood Foundation Trustee “Like my fellow jury members, I was immediately struck by the passion underlying Roman Manfredi’s and Sayuri Ichida’s work. The projects both artists are proposing represent exciting new departures in visual storytelling. They afford the viewer insights into urgent social issues in two very different cultures. Ichida’s innovative use of classroom chalkboards to chart the demographic crisis in rural Japan pushes the boundaries of photography. Manfredi’s deep dive into the third gender Feminelli community of Naples is fascinating and powerfully underscores the role art can play in promoting inclusivity”

The Jerwood/Photoworks Awards are a collaboration between Jerwood Foundation and Photoworks, supported by Spectrum Photographic and Arts Council England.


Jerwood Foundation
Established in 1977 for John Jerwood MC (1918-1991) by Alan Grieve CBE (1928-2025), Jerwood Foundation is a UK charity committed to supporting excellence and emerging talent in the arts in the UK. Alan Grieve served as Chairman for over 30 years and was appointed Chairman Emeritus in 2023, when Rupert Tyler was appointed Chairman. The organisation is led by Lara Wardle, Executive Director and Trustee and to date Jerwood Foundation has committed over £113 million to support the arts in the UK. Jerwood Foundation owns the Jerwood Collection of modern and contemporary art, and an important part of Jerwood’s philanthropic mission is delivered by the Collection through its loaning programme and promotion of a broader understanding, interpretation and enjoyment of art. Also included in the Jerwood group of organisations is Jerwood Space, which was Jerwood’s first major capital project when established by Jerwood Foundation in Southwark in 1998. Jerwood Space is a dedicated rehearsal space providing theatre, musical theatre, opera and dance companies with an outstanding environment within which to create their work.
www.jerwood.org
Photoworks
Photoworks champions photography for everyone. We are an international platform, global in reach, and have provided opportunities for artists and audiences since 1995. We collaborate with venues across the uk and worldwide, and our online channels are always open. The programme brings diverse experiences to audiences and opens up new ways to encounter photography. Photoworks is a registered charity and the only organisation with a national remit for photography in England. Our work is supported by public funding through Arts Council England’s National Portfolio.
www.photoworks.org.uk
Spectrum Photographic
Spectrum is a longstanding professional imaging lab specialising in high quality fine art and photographic printing, as well as archival mounting. They are proud of the reputation that they have established for themselves and are known for their high quality, passion, and above all, excellent service to their customers.
spectrumphoto.co.uk
Barnsley Civic
Barnsley Civic is a dynamic Arts Centre in the heart of Barnsley with a 398 seat theatre and exhibition space, dedicated to presenting bold, thought-provoking, and accessible contemporary art, culture and events. We curate and present a year-round programme of exhibitions, showcasing work by emerging and established artists from the UK and beyond. In addition to our exhibitions, we are deeply committed to artist development and public engagement. Following the recent restoration of historic Eldon Street in September 2024, Barnsley Civic is now more than ever a vital and vibrant centre for art, culture, and community in South Yorkshire. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
barnsleycivic.co.uk
Streetlevel Photoworks Glasgow
Founded in 1989, our core aim has remained consistent in providing people with a range of opportunities to engage with photography, as artists, participants, audiences, and sector partners. We are a gallery and an open access photographic production facility, and provide a high quality artistic programme in the city of Glasgow that is challenging and accessible, local and international, diverse and highly individual. Our programme’s reach is extended through a partnership network of local, regional and national venues that we provide exhibitions for. We also devise and deliver education and community engagement projects, which forge paths for lifelong learning and increase access to the arts for all who want to participate.
Recent exhibitions have included ‘Rebels & Renegades: the photography if Jill Furmanovsky and Sheila Rock’; Jenny Matthews ’Sewing Conflict’; ‘Depth of Field’, ‘Futureproof 2024’; `Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte ‘Arctic Swell - a simple melody’. Offsite exhibitions include ‘FONDS - Stories of People Through Objects They Love’ at Dunoon Burgh Hall; Simon Murphy ‘Govanhill’ at Letterkenny Regional Cultural Centre. Upcoming exhibitions include ’Nationhood - Memory and Hope’, a partnership with Impressions Gallery (Bradford), Belfast Exposed, and Ffotogallery (Cardiff); Simon Phipps ‘Brutalist Scotland’; Aqsa Arif and Ayesha Jones, as part of Glasgow International 2026.
www.streetlevelphotoworks.org
Ffotogallery
Since its formation in 1978, Ffotogallery has been at the forefront of new developments in photography and lens-based media in Wales and beyond, encouraging public understanding of and deeper engagement with photography and its value to society. Photography has the power to affect and reflect social change. By building an inclusive grassroots network in Wales with an international impact, Ffotogallery will be at the heart of a welcoming, creative community engaged in contemporary conversations about photography’s role in shaping a more equitable and sustainable world.
www.ffotogallery.org
Drawing Room and Tannery Arts
Located in southeast London, Drawing Room is a not-for-profit organisation that features a gallery presenting inspiring free exhibitions of drawings, by artists of international standing and emerging promise. Featuring a unique open access research library, holding one of the largest collections of titles on contemporary drawing in the world. The exhibitions, research and learning activities, together with talks, artist-led projects, special commissions and other events, nurture artistic talent through supporting the production of new work and share the diversity of drawing with an ever-widening audience. Together, this makes the Drawing Room the UK & European centre for the exploration, appreciation and expression of drawing. Drawing Room is a non-profit public organisation that champions the unlimited potential of drawing to help us understand ourselves, each other and our world. It is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. Drawing Room is a division of and is situated within the Tannery Arts building, which provides studio space, support and resources for artists, together forming Tannery Arts Ltd, a unique creative partnership. The Jerwood/Photoworks exhibition at Drawing Room is kindly supported by the University of Gloucester.
drawingroom.org.uk
tanneryarts.org.uk